Season 26
199820 EpisodesDocumentary
Episode Guide
In 1714, after a maritime catastrophe, the British Parliament offers £20,000 for the first reliable method of determining longitude on a ship at sea. Longitude can be found by comparing a ship’s local time to the time at its port of origin. The challenge is to find a clock—chronometer—that can keep time at sea, where temperature fluctuations, humidity, gravity, and a moving vessel undermine accuracy. NOVA chronicles the seventeenth-century journey to determine longitude.