Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

In 1714 The English Parliament commissioned a committee to create an appropriate prize for a solution to the longitude problem. They sought the advice of the great physicist Sir Isaac Newton as well as astronomer Edmund Halley, who had mapped the major stars of the Southern Hemisphere and magnetic variations that affect compass readings. Newton summarized the options currently in use but believed better methods were possible.

In July, Parliament passed the Longitude Act, which offered a prize of £20,000 (millions of US dollars today) for “‘Practicable and Useful’ methods” that could compute longitude to within half a degree (54), or 34 miles at the Equator. Prizes of £15,000 and £10,000 would go to methods that reduced the error to two-thirds of a degree and one degree, respectively.

The Act established a Board of Longitude made up of prominent politicians, naval officials, and scientists (including Newton) that could award small grants to help promising inventions move forward. (The Board would serve for more than 100 years and disburse £100,000 in incentives.) The prize attracted a crowd of eager contestants, many of them quacks or overeager inventors with plans for improving all sorts of naval technology, creating perpetual motion machines, or solving pi.