Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-180) and index.

Imaginary lines -- The sea before time -- Adrift in a clockwork universe -- Time in a bottle -- Powder of sympathy -- The prise -- Cogmaker's journal -- The grasshopper goes to sea -- Hands on heaven's clock -- The diamond timekeeper -- Trial by fire and water -- A tale of two portraits -- The second voyage of Captain James Cook -- The mass production of genius -- In the meridian courtyard.

Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--and had been for centuries. The scientific establishment of Europe--from Galileo to Sir Issac Newton--had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is a dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.