Longitude
Dava Sobel
14 people recommended it in 7 threads, 2011–2025.
1 commenter pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
Longitude follows John Harrison's fascinating, painful and lengthy quest to win the Longitude Prize by creating a clock that was accurate enough to determine longitude at sea.
I liked Logitude so much I called myself h4labs when I released apps in the App Store, after Harrison’s H4 watch.
The fascinating and infuriating story of how longitude was created/discovered/measured/whatever.
Sailors knew for a while how to get your latitude (by using the position of the north star) but didn't have a way of getting their longitude pre-18th century. This was a serious problem in navigation and this is the story of how a solution came about.
I loved Longitude, and Harrison was a determined guy, but the most interesting part for me was seeing the “rewrite from scratch” and “never ship” dynamics are old indeed!
The best non-fiction I have read in the past 25 years is * Longitude, by Dava Sobel.
Where it comes up
- Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things 2025 · 7 recommendations
- Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018? 2018 · 2 recommendations
- Ask HN: Best books read in 2022? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years 2019 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Books you read in 2015? 2015 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days? 2015 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What are your favorite books of 2010? 2011 · 1 recommendation