Longitude Prize gets reboot for 21st century

The most inspirational award for innovation is reincarnated.

The original Longitude Prize changed nautical history, unlocked the secret of accurate navigation, saved countless lives, and helped traders to exploit the Earth’s vast resources, from minerals to spices and more.

Now, in the 300th anniversary year of the Longitude Act, which launched the prize that helped humanity to conquer the world, a new $18.3-million US challenge has been unveiled, intended to solve a key problem of the 21st century.

Announced with a fanfare last year, the Longitude Prize will be outlined in detail in a special edition of BBC’s Horizon program this week. But this time it will be the British public, rather than the government, who will decide which challenge to tackle.

At the heart of the original endeavour, launched in 1714, was John Harrison, a clockmaker who, with little formal education, attempted to crack the navigational conundrum that had baffled some of the greatest minds of the 18th century — accurately measuring the earth’s lines of longitude.

Global position is described by longitude and latitude, both measured in degrees. The problem was that the lines of longitude running pole to pole presented a formidable challenge.

As one moves east or west across lines of longitude, the local time moves one hour for every 15 degrees. Accurate pendulum clocks existed then, but his challenge was to maintain accuracy in a moving ship that was subject to significant changes in humidity and temperature. Harrison succeeded using a highly accurate chronometer.