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Clockmaker John Harrison vindicated 250 years after ‘absurd’ claims
- x1798DE 9y agoThis seems like a lot of spin, honestly. I don't have the background here, but Harrison evidently didn't build a clock with the claimed accuracy. Some people with access to advanced material and fabrication technology (whether they availed themselves of it is not mentioned) built it over 200 years later. It seems entirely possible that their skepticism was based on the fact that actually building such a thing was infeasible at the time. Additionally, I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to pretend like people thought he was a crank. He was well-regarded as a brilliant clock-designer and builder. I mean, I think it's totally plausible that he could have built such a thing - I live in a world where 1 second in 100 days doesn't seem like a terribly accurate clock, so I'm not particularly blown away by the claim. I just think it's worth pointing out that probably a lot of these highly adversarial stories that make for a neat little story are probably not an accurate picture of reality.
- digikata 9y agoIncidentally, the book "Longitude", by Dava Sobel is a fun read about John Harrison and how timekeeping was critical for navigation of long distances at sea at the time.