Longitude Forged

[David Payne]

"Most people know something of the events in 1714 when the British government instituted a prize for the discovery of a successful way to find longitude at sea. The aim was to reduce the heavy toll of shipwrecks caused by the crude navigational method of dead reckoning. [...] an early rival who figures in the tale has gone down in history as another projector from Yorkshire, named Jeremy Thacker. Unfortunately Thacker never existed and his proposal now emerges as a hoax."
 
More at: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5136819.ece
 
The article argues that historians have been fooled by a satirical proposal for measuring latitude. Lots of M&D related material here, like hairbrained schemes, in-fighting in the astronomical/mathematical world, & wacky clocks ("a chronological automaton gifted to Mary II" ?!?).
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