Opinion

Longitude: Don’t Forget the Innovator Who Single-handedly Changed the Times

As Europe entered the Age of Sail, conquering the seas became a challenge for everyone from captains and sailors to scientists and kings. One of the keys to navigating the oceans was positioning. To determine one’s position in the vastness of the sea, one needed to know both longitude and latitude. It was not difficult to calculate the latitude relatively accurately from the length of the day and the angle of the sun or Polaris above the horizon, but how to measure the ever-changing longitude? 

Without an effective means of determining longitude, ships could easily lose their way at sea. Therefore, European monarchs offered large rewards to solve the problem, and famous scientists such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei classified it as an “astronomical problem” and tried to find solutions in astronomy and mathematics. But for more than 400 years, no breakthrough was made.

At the beginning of the 18th century, John Harrison, an English clockmaker of humble origins (he was originally a carpenter), attempted to tackle the longitude problem from the “timekeeping” point of view. Harrison, who was neither rich nor famous nor had any prominent connections, faced a strong competitor. The mainstream solution at the time was still the astronomically based “method of lunar distances”, which was favoured by the official and scientific community, although it was cumbersome, time-consuming, and significantly less accurate than Harrison’s approach. 

So how did the Harrison method finally prevail? Dava Sobel’s Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Chinese version published by Century Publishing Group, Shanghai People’s Publishing House in 2007), is a fascinating account of this lesser-known but far-reaching piece of history. Since its publication, the book has won numerous prizes and has been adapted for film and television.

To me, the most intriguing part of this story is the logic of historical development. Technological innovation requires a free and tolerant social environment (even though the method of lunar distances was the dominant one, the officials and the public at that time did not reject Harrison’s chronometer method); a pragmatic rather than ideological atmosphere (the naval officers and soldiers who witnessed the effectiveness of the chronometer method on board the ship were willing to testify on Harrison’s behalf, even at the risk of losing their posts); and visionary leaders (without the direct intervention of the British monarch, the misunderstandings and humiliations Harrison endured would not have been resolved so easily). 

Although micro-history is often fraught with obstacles and pitfalls, and the pace of time seems to stall or even regress, on a larger scale, history is always fair and clear: the British Empire was able to win in the Age of Sail and continue its centuries-long dominance of the oceans because it made the right choices at a critical crossroads.

Reading this book, it is hard not to think of China’s missed historical opportunities: from Su Song, who designed the earliest astronomical clock, the “Cosmic Engine”, during the Northern Song Dynasty, to the Qianlong Emperor, who loved Western clocks and watches but never thought of using them to promote his country’s technological innovations… As we reflect on today’s challenges of technological, economic and even institutional innovation, are there no lessons to be learned from these experiences?

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