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Summary: Case Study Illustrating Dumbing Down of Modern Intellect
Review: Dava Sobel's "Longitude : The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" is to scientific explanation, as Jane Pauly's "Nightline" is to an incisive portrayal of the news. If you think this is a compliment, read the book. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
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Summary: Excellent historical account!!!
Review: I was very impressed with this work. What an extremely novel idea for research! It was truly everything I had hoped it would be...and more. The author utilizes the nice technique of circular coverage. It is not a simply chronological account. This adds to the mystique!! I came away much more knowledgeable!! Bravo...
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Summary: I long(itud)ed for some technical info; left with a latitude
Review: I really thought that I would have the opportunity to put some of the pieces of the discovery of longitude together. Sobel's discription of Harrison left me even more confused. No new history; no new technological discussion. Almost worthless.
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Summary: "That" the Longitude Problem was solved, rather than "how".
Review: A beautifully constructed and deeply unsatisfying book. It tells us that the problem was solved but barely hints at HOW the problem was solved- truely social history, without substantial reference to technology. If only she'd had a co-author who cared how the deed was done!
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Summary: Great book for travelers
Review: I really liked this book. I travel a lot and this book meets my criteria: small enought to take in my briefcase, inexpensive, easy to read, and technically interesting. I like to read a book like this on an airplane, or in my motel room. I can easily start it and stop it whenever it is convienent. What I liked about this book is it really showed the what one person can do, against the odds, with total devotion. This fellow was a real hero that most people never even heard of.
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Summary: Should be listed as "FICTION."
Review: This book is subtitled, "The True Story of a Lone Genius . . . ." but it bears little resemblance to the truth, particularly in the author's descriptions of the technology of horology. These are invariably incorrect and/or wholly invented.
A part of the difficulty the author allowed herself to be caught up in is her left-wing hero worship of her protagonist, John Harrison. She presents him as a self-trained, working-class man against whom are arrayed all the luminaries of Science, Mathematics and the Establishment of 18th century London.
The author writes about horologists as if she were frequently in their company, without knowing, apparently, that horologists are not academics and writers who attend symposia, colloquiums and conferences to engage in intellectual incest. They are those who engage in the art of measuring time, or making clocks, watches, etc.
Among the author's worst pieces of invention is her description of a truly remarkable clock at Barton-on-Humber, in the stabl
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Summary: Excellent history of the original chronometers
Review: The lack of illustrations -- other than two small ones on the dust jacket -- is a major, but virtually the only, disappointment
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Summary: Interesting, but needs more history and science
Review: Longitude told a very interesting tale about the longitude problem and how the world's greatest minds of the time were upstaged by a simple clockmaker. The narrative was interesting and kept my attention, but it seemed that ther were just too many gaps. I realize that details on Harrison's life are sketchy, but I'd like to understand how it could possibly take someone nearly 20 years to build a single clock, no matter how complicated. Though far from being a scienctist or engineer, I thought the book was also begging for at least some basic diagrams to help us understand just why Harrison's task was so daunting. It seems that this book either needs more detail, or one would be better off with the summary version presumably contained in an earlier article to which Sobel refers
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Summary: v g but no graphics
Review: v g but no graphic
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Summary: A museum guide view of the history of science
Review: This book has a very enticing title, and you can't help looking at the clock photos in the first pages.
But there could be more substance in the text. Ideas are presented without a context - the powder of sympathy appears to be an isolated idea. Numbers and facts are treated like adjectives; for instance, don't try to calculate how many people died in the Centurion (chapter 2) and compare to the number of survivors.
The book looks a lot like a museum visit, where each piece is explained, but no clear link is visible between the pieces. And then, the explanations are quite superficial, with little technical detail.
Not that the longitude problem requires a technical text. On the contrary, it can be presented in dramatic colors as Umberto Eco did in his "The Island of the day before".
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