Clocks and Longitude.

Just got done reading what was probably the first book I've read for the fun of it in over two years: "Longitude."

Not much to say about it except that it was a fun read into the history of something we don't think about much: clocks. What does it matter if we get there a few minutes late, if our clocks are off by thirty minutes, an hour. Well if you were a sailor, a great deal. Millions of dollars were spent to research how to find longitude, and therefore the east/west position of ships on an open ocean. Brilliant astronomers and physicists mapped the stars and cranked out hundreds of thousands of calculations, when the end all it took was simple multiplication and the creation of a more accurate clock. Based on the clock that kept the time of the port you set out from (or Greenwhich Mean Time later on), and the hour difference of the location you were at (found by checking when the sun hit it's highest point: noon) you could find the time difference. Say it's noon in Greenwhich, and two hours ahead where you are. Multiply that two hour difference by fifteen degrees (good old geometry), and you're at 30 degrees west (give or take a few degrees... which can translate into quite a few miles). Hooray math. Let's do it again! 3 hours head? 45 degrees west. Four hours ahead? 60 degrees West. Then convert degrees into the distance given the charts you're using and BAM! Location, location, location. With today's clocks you can get even more accurate to the .00000000000001 degree (or some decimal point that's way out there), but I have neither the time nor inclination to go into that.

Now if you have a clock that's notoriously inaccurate given certain conditions (temperature change, waving of the sea, salty air, etc), you've got a pretty dangerous situation. You don't know where you are as far as East/West goes, and you might think you're at Tierra del Fuego when instead you're in the Falklands.
This led to countless deaths by error of judgment (not to mention when you forget to carry the two), the loss of billions of dollars, and the general unpleasant nature of sailing (what happens if you've go a scurvy outbreak and you need to get to land fast, but don't know which way to go?).

So in walks John Harrison with a magnificent clock, which by its very nature is extremely accurate (made of metals that contract and expand at different rates in different temperatures, and in a ratio such that the clock as a whole loses no time due to expanding or contracting parts... brilliant), and a very simple solution.
What follows is British naval superiority over sea for a few hundred years (which also has much to do with sauerkraut and limes), the "shrinking" of the world due to lesser transportation costs, and a more profitable marine market not subject to "the mystery of longitude." Hooray clocks.

Perhaps this is why the English are so obsessed with time? ;)

So next time some one comes in late and tells you: "Thirty minutes, an hour. What's the difference?" You can tell them. Fifteen degrees longitude. And many sailors lost their lives because of it.

The other moral of this story? Keep it simple, stupid.

... God, I'm a nerd.

Next book: "The Other Path" by Hernando de Soto. Peruvian economist vs. the Shining Path? Did economics really fight terror more successfully than military might? Or was it that there were just a few productive "disappearances" thanks to the Peruvian military? I'm thinking Fuji-san's influence is understated in this book. So far.