I had no idea that Harrison's clocks were so complex. His obsession with friction and changing conditions was clearly necessary, in retrospect, but WOW. The ext

I had no idea that Harrison's clocks were so complex. His obsession with friction and changing conditions was clearly necessary, in retrospect, but WOW. The extensive use of "anti-friction" wheels, and even portions of a wheel, is very cleaver, but at some point the things look like he's trying to win the clockmakers version of an Obfuscated C contest[1]. No wonder the Longitude Board gave him such grief. It must have seemed like he was deliberately trying to hide secrets from them. Unless you understood how important friction and temperature were in causing the drift of clocks at that time, it would have all seemed like unnecessary complexity. [1] https://ioccc.org/ https://ioccc.org/