Navigation and the Longitude Problem

Abstract

Since the 15th century, when traders and explorers began journeying away from European shores, problems of navigation and position-finding, especially the determination of longitude, became more and more acute. As we will see, accurate timekeeping was recognized as the solution to the longitude problem, and the pendulum played a pivotal role in solving it. Nearly all the great scientists of the 17th century (Galileo, Huygens, Newton, and Hooke) worked intimately with clock-makers and used their analysis of pendulum motion, specifically its isochronism, to create more accurate clocks. As well as being instrumental in the scientific revolution, the pendulum was instrumental in the associated horological revolution.