| To elaborate a bit, the significance of that was that without accurate clocks navigators could only reliably figure out their latitude at sea. Imagine if you are trying to navigate to some far away island that is southwest of your starting position. If you tried to sail the direct route, when you reached the correct latitude you would have no idea if you are east of the island or west of the island. Instead, you'd have to sail south or mostly south until you got to the right latitude, then sail west until you reached the island. This could be a much longer journey. Even if you are going for something much bigger than an island, like a particular port on a continent, not knowing longitude made it difficult. Say you are going from Spain to someplace in South America. Unlike the island example above, you might think you can just try for the shortest route because if you end up too far west when you reach the right latitude, you'll at least be able to find the coast of the continent and come down that. But that coastal territory might belong to Spain's enemies who might not take kindly to a Spanish ship in their waters without permission. To avoid that risk, you have to do just like you would do in the island case--go south until you are at the right latitude and then go west. A practical and reliable way to find longitude at sea was seen as something that would confer major economic and military advantages to any country that had it over those that did not, and so governments provided funding and prizes and other incentives to encourage development of a solution. |