HISTORY-LATITUDES AND LONGITUDES.
There was a serious naval accident , in which many people
died, because, they could not measure the longitude of the ship.
The latitude is easily measure by the sextant, which
measures the incline of the spot, compared to the equator, where it is zero, as
the Sun is vertically over the head at noon. For determining the longitude, we
have to compare the difference in time, compared to the Greenwich mean time.
Now I is easy, as we have the wrist watch; at that time, there was only the
grandfather clock, which would turn and tumble in the waves. A committee was appointed
under the chairmanship of Sir Isaac Newton, but they could not find a solution.
At last, a clock maker in Italy found a way out. He invented
the gimbals, which would the clock in the vertical position, even when the ship
is rocked by the waves ! They could carry two grandfather clocks, one according
to the Greenwich time and another according to the local time of the ship, ie ,
twelve at noon.
No comments:
Post a Comment