A Continued Introduction
Two ships meet in the Indian Ocean. It's the start of a bad joke isn't it?
"I'm sorry," mumble the shuffled feet and bowed-low heads. "It was consumption." I'm sorry Mr. Bowditch.
Voyages and seasons pass like rising tides and waxing moon. Healing happens. Years pass.
Enter Polly.
And here's where the children's book and history diverge. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch says Polly was Elizabeth's cousin. History corrects our innocent ideas. Polly was Nat's first cousin.
Regardless, time marches on. Happiness. Numbers. A book.
So now you know the human interest piece. But what about the mathemetician? What made him famous?
In 19th century sailing, navigation was like a blindfolded game of darts. Surely just as dangerous. Longitude, the position of a ship in relation to north or south, was impossible to find without a chronometer, which were extremely expensive, highly accurate clocks. One man, Hamilton Moore, attempted to fix this problem. He wrote a series of computations, which he published as a book titled "Navigation" which allowed captains to calculate a ships position north or south of the equator. This was great in theory, however many ships were dashed to pieces while folling these tables.
On Bowditch's first voyage, while reading Moore's Navigation, he encountered an error in one of the tables. He found 8,000 errors in his lifetime. Through years of thorough work, Bowditch wrote his own set of calculations, and titled the book "The Amercian Practical Navigator." In its 78th printing, it is still considered the authority on navigation.
Longtitude was not the only navigational tool he improved. Latitude, the east or west position of a ship, was found with the help of a sextant, similar to a protractor with mounted viewing lenses. This instrument was used to measure the angle of the moon when it "occulted," or passed over, a star. Through complex math, the latitude of the ship was found. It was very difficult to catch the moon occulting a star. Readings were, at best, only gotten every three or four days. Bowditch imporved this system by triangulating three stars surrounding the moon, averaging their positions, and calculating a much simpler equation.
Thus the enitre world of navigation was changed single-handedly by Nat Bowditch.
We leave less than three weeks from today. In my next posts, I'll explain the sites we'll be visiting, and some of the background and highlights of the book. I'm excited, are you?
"I'm sorry," mumble the shuffled feet and bowed-low heads. "It was consumption." I'm sorry Mr. Bowditch.
Voyages and seasons pass like rising tides and waxing moon. Healing happens. Years pass.
Enter Polly.
And here's where the children's book and history diverge. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch says Polly was Elizabeth's cousin. History corrects our innocent ideas. Polly was Nat's first cousin.
Regardless, time marches on. Happiness. Numbers. A book.
So now you know the human interest piece. But what about the mathemetician? What made him famous?
In 19th century sailing, navigation was like a blindfolded game of darts. Surely just as dangerous. Longitude, the position of a ship in relation to north or south, was impossible to find without a chronometer, which were extremely expensive, highly accurate clocks. One man, Hamilton Moore, attempted to fix this problem. He wrote a series of computations, which he published as a book titled "Navigation" which allowed captains to calculate a ships position north or south of the equator. This was great in theory, however many ships were dashed to pieces while folling these tables.
On Bowditch's first voyage, while reading Moore's Navigation, he encountered an error in one of the tables. He found 8,000 errors in his lifetime. Through years of thorough work, Bowditch wrote his own set of calculations, and titled the book "The Amercian Practical Navigator." In its 78th printing, it is still considered the authority on navigation.
Longtitude was not the only navigational tool he improved. Latitude, the east or west position of a ship, was found with the help of a sextant, similar to a protractor with mounted viewing lenses. This instrument was used to measure the angle of the moon when it "occulted," or passed over, a star. Through complex math, the latitude of the ship was found. It was very difficult to catch the moon occulting a star. Readings were, at best, only gotten every three or four days. Bowditch imporved this system by triangulating three stars surrounding the moon, averaging their positions, and calculating a much simpler equation.
Thus the enitre world of navigation was changed single-handedly by Nat Bowditch.
We leave less than three weeks from today. In my next posts, I'll explain the sites we'll be visiting, and some of the background and highlights of the book. I'm excited, are you?
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