How We Solved the Greatest Riddle In Navigation

Why is it so hard to keep track of latitude and longitude? Because they're all over the map! Two things: Not sorry for that joke, and I want to make sure you know that we have a Patreon where you can see new videos before anyone else and help support the show with no algorithms in the way: www.patreon.com/itsokaytobesmart

The "purple star" example was far more interesting in reality. Dutch astronomer Christaan Huygens tested using the moons of Jupiter as a universal clock. Specifically using Io passing in front of Jupiter as a "time stamp." As he built the time tables for this, he was shocked to find the times drifted by some 20 minutes throughout the year. It didn't repeat "on time," despite having the correct period the next night. He correctly correlated the observed time shift to the changing distance between the earth and Jupiter as they rotate around the sun. Noting, it took longer to see the event the further away we were from each other. The light was late because it simply had further to go. Thus, giving him the first solid (and shockingly good) estimate for the true speed of light. Something that was purely speculative up to that point, but nobody had any evidence for.

11:20 whenever Harrison asked for the prize, the committee attributed his success to luck and refused to give the prize. King George then advised Harrison to petition Parliament for the full prize after threatening to appear in person to dress them down. Finally in 1773, when he was 80 years old, Harrison received a monetary award in the amount of £8,750 from Parliament for his achievements, but he never received the official award (which was never awarded to anyone). He was to survive for just three more years.

MAP MEN MAP MEN MAP MEN MAP MEN!

I'm going to disagree with your disclaimer about the globe at 1:22. It has a unified Germany which happened on October 3, 1990, AND a still unified USSR which didn't dissolve until December 26, 1991. It looks like this globe was made between those times when the world of cartography got swept up in a frenzy of map making during the collapse of the Eastern Bloc never thinking that the work of redrawing the lines with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the break up of Yugoslavia would happen so soon afterwards.

There is a very enjoyable book with the expanded version of this story. It's called "The Illustrated Longitude" by Dava Sobel published in 1995. She first wrote "Longitude" without illustrations 2 years earlier, and her scientific community urged her to illustrate it. She did a masterful job. The clock shown in the video is actually the 3rd or 4th clock produced by Harrison, as he improved them and made them smaller. The first clock was much bigger. The trick was that the pendulum could withstand the rocking of the ship. And as stated, they denied Harrison the prize because he was a mere "tinkerer" compared to the scholars also working on the problem. He received the award at the end of his life.

Another fun fact about time and location: GPS algorithms have to take into account that the satellites' orbital velocity and the resultant distorted time. Anything moving experiences "time dilation" and if GPS devices didn't take into fact that warping of time, they wouldn't be nearly as accurate as they are.

I watch science videos on youtube for almost 10 years and I'm amazed to still learn so much from a video from time to time. Thanks for spreading knowledge!

Great video! 10 years ago I went to theGreenwich observatory. Back then, there was this old man who gave this free tour. He explained the longtitude problem to us, the audience. Why they went from observing at the moon to building clocks. And oh boy, there are many old clocks on display at the observatory.

I never thought about the ship's movement causing issues with the clocks. That's actually so cool to think about

I inherited one of my professor's indignation at every person who attributed the Great Pyramids to aliens since that's so dismissive and disrespectful to those ancient engineers. They created something amazing! How dare we dismiss their accomplishments by attributing it to something for which there is no evidence and is, basically, "magic"! I applaud you, Smart Channel! :)

Great episode! It's always so humbling to realize just how brilliant some of our ancestors were and how much we take their efforts for granted. Also, anyone else constantly distracted by this man's flawless head of hair??

There's an excellent miniseries called Longitude which dramatizes Harrison's years of tinkering with clocks and how they were proven practical, and the obsession of a 20th century man for restoring Harrison's original clock models and make them function again.

At the end of the 1990's I toured the Old Royal Observatory and looked at the H-1, H-2, and H-3 chronometers, stood on the Prime Meridian, learned the purpose of the red ball dropping daily. I did my research prior to an international field trip and got to enjoy myself.

I am a Guidance, Navigation, and Control Engineer for spacecraft, and I approve this message. It really quite remarkable, my designs today still use a clock and a star map to figuere out where its pointing. Things have changed but not in the ways you might think

i really love how knowledge compounds over time. nowadays, we have incredibly sophisticated technology that make navigation very easy. because our ancestors took the time to write down their findings when they went out exploring and getting lost everywhere. i wanna go back in time and say thanks

You should do a follow-up video on the history of the time zones. It has to do with trains instead of boats.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I remember my grandfather teaching me this as a kid. He was a Naval History Professor, expert Navigator and Compass Adjuster.

I started watching your videos when I was about 10 and they helped get me interested in history, science, and all that other nerdy stuff. Almost 6 years later and I still love all the videos. The team behind this channel are responsible for some of the best memories of my youth. Thanks guys ❤️

I read Longitude by Dava Sobel; the most amazing thing to me other than the relentlessness of Harrison was the politics and backstabbing competition among the other inventors of the era. Fascinating book!