Harrison Decoded: Towards a Perfect Pendulum Clock (Hardcover)

Curator of Horology Rory McEvoy; Curator Emeritus of Horology Jonathan Betts
 9780198816812
0-19-881681-2

Brings together the output of a forty-year collaborative research project that unpicked and put into practice the fine details of John Harrison's extraordinary pendulum clock system. Harrison predicted.

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that his unique method of making pendulum clocks could provide as much as one-hundred-times the stability of those made by his contemporaries. However, his final publication, which promised to describe the system, was a chaotic jumble of information, much of which had nothing to do with clockwork. One contemporary reviewer of Harrison's book could only suggest that the end result was a product of Harrison's 'superannuated dotage.' The focus of this book centres on the making, adjusting, and testing of Clock B which was the subject of various trials at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The modern history of Clock B is accompanied by scientific analysis of the clock system, Clock B's performance, the methods of data-gathering alongside historical perspectives on Harrison's clockmaking, that of his contemporaries, and some evaluation of the possible influence of early 18th century scientific thought.