presently before his death in 1776 , bizarre British clock - Divine John Harrison claimed to have designed the ‘ everlasting ’ clock , one that would keep time cleanly . His rivals and peers spell it off as the boast of a bitter , 80 - yr - old failure — but in forward-looking - day luminance , Harrison has finally been proved right .
Back in the 18th century , Britain , at the pinnacle of its naval world power , was looking for a better way of life to keep track of its ship at ocean . In the days before GPS , heavenly navigation was the only upright way to get a positional fix , and celestial seafaring relies heavily on fourth dimension — making an accurate clock vital .
For most of his professional life , Harrison attempt to build a spotter that would meet the standards of the Royal Navy , winning a dirty money pot worth about $ 6 million in today ’s money . Despite building a lookout that ( on the face of it ) met the standard , Harrison was never accepted by his peers , and never quite got the full payout .
But towards the end of his life , he designed a clock he take would be more exact than anything else on the acres , losing less than a second per 100 days . The excogitation were publish off and forgotten until the seventies , when clockmaker Martin Burgess found Harrison ’s innovation , and built clocks from Harrison ’s blueprint .
And , consort to the Guiness World Records people , Harrison ’s claims were exactly correct — in a mental test conducted at the beginning of this year , the clock was demonstrate to turn a loss just 5/8ths of a 2nd in 100 days , make it the earth ’s “ most accurate mechanically skillful clock with a pendulum swing in free air ” . It ’s a few eld late , but Harrison for sure got the last laugh . [ Guardian ]
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