The history of longitude is a record of the effort, by navigators and scientists over several centuries, to discover a means of determining longitude.
The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. Historically, the most important practical application of these was to provide safe ocean navigation. Knowledge of both latitude and longitude was required. Finding a method of determining longitude took centuries and involved some of the greatest scientific minds.
Read more about History Of Longitude: Ancient History, Problem of Longitude, Time Equals Longitude, Proposed Methods of Determining Time, Lunars or Chronometers?, Modern Solutions, Further Refinements For Longitude On Land, Notable Scientific Contributions
Famous quotes containing the words history of and/or history:
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a will to renewal. This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of crisesMof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no crisis, there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)