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#1 2004-04-09 11:01:02
- Palomar
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- From: USA
- Registered: 2002-05-30
- Posts: 9,734
Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
*I found some interesting information about this gentleman (including a book entitled _Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time_). Have shared the info with my "Age of Voltaire" group.
I've done some cursory reading, will dig more indepth later.
Anyone here interested in these sorts of inventions? I do like clocks.
Here are some good links about him:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
[http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi235.htm]http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi235.htm
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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#2 2004-04-11 02:56:22
- Mundaka
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- Registered: 2004-01-11
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Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra
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#3 2004-04-11 10:25:14
- dicktice
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- From: Nova Scotia, Canada
- Registered: 2002-11-01
- Posts: 1,764
Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
That was, and still is, typical for inventors. Read the history of the invention of moveable type based upon the desire of Gutenburg to duplicate the look and feel of hand-lettered Bibles, and how (after inventing the entire printing process, still in use today) was taken to the cleaners. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are the only original inventors I know of who were able to keep ahead of the stealers (because they were posssesed of just as much cussedness?). Recollect the solitary inventors of the zipper, hooks and loops (Velcro) . . . but why go on? Fortunately, inventors need no such incentive because, while always broke, they have all the fun of thinking stuff up!
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#4 2004-04-11 16:01:25
- Palomar
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- From: USA
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Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
Interested? Sure! If you look really hard at the things they are really similar to mechanical computers. Also I heard that the poor gent in question sort of . . . never got paid.
*Hi Mundaka. Enjoying the chilly wet weather? 
I can't yet confirm or deny whether or not Mr. Harrison got paid. It'd be unfortunate if he didn't of course...but then he did achieve immortality.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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#5 2004-04-11 17:29:21
- Mundaka
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Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra
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#6 2004-04-12 19:03:36
- dicktice
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- From: Nova Scotia, Canada
- Registered: 2002-11-01
- Posts: 1,764
Re: John Harrison [1693 - 1776] - Inventor, 1st Successful Maritime Clock
Cindy: The Scientific American issue devoted to timepieces (can't remember which, but it was choice) confirmed that he was literally royally screwed. I saw the restored clocks of his at the Greenwich Observatory years ago--quite wonderful: a man's lifework in the precision mechanics of that important period of World discovery. And by the way, I meant it when I wrote that inventors have more fun than anybody. Immortality just ain't what it's cracked up to be--ask any inventor.
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