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    Longitud: La verdadera historia de un genio solitario que resolvió el mayor problema científico de su tiempo
    Longitud: La verdadera historia de un genio solitario que resolvió el mayor problema científico de su tiempo
    Longitud: La verdadera historia de un genio solitario que resolvió el mayor problema científico de su tiempo
    Ebook171 pages2 hours

    Longitud: La verdadera historia de un genio solitario que resolvió el mayor problema científico de su tiempo

    By Dava Sobel

    4/5

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    Dava Sobel narra la historia del científico y relojero escocés John Harrison, un genio solitario cuyos logros fueron rechazados por la élite científica de su tiempo, pero que consiguió resolver un problema aparentemente imposible: descubrir un método que permitiera a los marineros determinar la longitud exacta de su posición en el mar. No se trataba de ninguna curiosidad excéntrica: antes de descubrir la longitud, los barcos solían desviarse tanto de su rumbo que los marineros morían de inanición o de escorbuto antes de haber alcanzado ningún puerto. Necesitaban mucha suerte para llegar a su destino, ya que ninguna nave contaba con métodos fiables para establecer su posición en alta mar. Millares de vidas humanas, la expansión político-económica y las crecientes fortunas de las naciones que flotaban en los océanos dependían de este hallazgo. En 1714, el gobierno inglés convocó un concurso y ofreció una elevada recompensa para aquel que lograra desarrollar un método capaz de determinar la longitud exacta. El reto de resolver el legendario dilema lo aceptaron científicos de la talla de Galileo, Newton o Halley. Harrison trabajó durante más de cuarenta años para fabricar un cronómetro perfectoy al fin lo logró. Longitud es el dramático relato sobre el empeño de un hombre por construir un medidor temporal a la vez que una fascinante historia de la astronomía, la navegación y el arte de fabricar relojes.

    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherEditorial Anagrama
    Release dateJun 28, 2023
    ISBN9788433911193
    Longitud: La verdadera historia de un genio solitario que resolvió el mayor problema científico de su tiempo
    Author

    Dava Sobel

    Dava Sobel nació en Estados Unidos, donde ejerce su profesión de periodista científica. Colabora en las páginas de ciencia de The New York Times y escribe artículos sobre astronomía para publicaciones científicas. 

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    Reviews for Longitud

    4/5

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    • 4/5
       This is the best kind of history and the best kind of science writing. It tells us readers about about people, history, technology, and all the other contexts we need to understand how navigators got the tools they needed to know where in the great oceans they were.
    • 4/5
      Non-fiction about the quest to develop a reliable method for measuring longitude. The first several chapters describe the difficulties encountered by ships attempting to navigate solely based on latitude. The focus then shifts to a biography of John Harrison, the 18th century clockmaker who attempted to solve this problem based on timekeeping. It also describes his primary competitor and adversary, Nevil Maskelyne, who was keen on proving that the best approach involved astronomical readings. They and many others vied for the monetary prize offered by the British government. Along the way, the author highlights some of the more outlandish ideas, one of which involves barking dogs!

      The book is far more than a scientific analysis of the problem of finding longitude. It portrays the intrigue, rivalries, conflicts, and accidental discoveries that make this book a fascinating reading experience. It is a story of the triumph of a perfectionistic genius of humble origins over the well-educated experts of the day. Recommended to those who, like me, enjoy stories related to travel by sea, voyages of exploration and discovery, and maritime adventures in days of yore.
    • 4/5
      While the story itself is an engaging one, I found the book overall to be a disappointment. The explanations of the astronomical methods for finding longitude and the workings of a watch were not detailed enough to provide a full understanding for those of us without any prior knowledge of the two subjects. I came away with a rough idea of both, but I certainly could not explain either one of them to somebody else. I would have appreciated a few diagrams and/or photographs of the instruments. I also found the narrative to be repetitive and the tone uneven. The author would introduce one of the characters and then a chapter or two later, mention them again as though it was their first appearance in the story. There also were a number of cliches and the individuals are not clearly differentiated. I'm not certain I am interested enough in the topic to try again, but I see there are several more recent books that have been published on the quest to find an accurate way to measure longitude and I would recommend you look at some of those books before deciding which to read. I think you can do better than this version of the story.
    • 3/5
      Longitude is the tale of John Harrison's quest to win the Board of Longitude's 20,000 pound prize in the 1700s to be the first person to discover a reliable means of determining one's longitude (particularly at sea). A boring story? Perhaps you might think so, but the story of longitude is filled with backstabbing, internal politics, and jealous rivals.

      There were two primary means of determining longitude put forward, that of astronomical means, using the stars to gauge where one is, and that of time, if you know the accurate time for where you are vs a predetermined location (Greenwich) one can determine the longitude. Astronomical was favored by the learned men of the day, as it was considered more "pure", though perhaps more importantly, Royal Astronomers held the scientific positions of authority and thus the more celestial oriented a solution was, the more it improved their own fame. However astronomy requires clear night skies, a very limiting factor, where a clock can be any hour of the day and weather.

      Without detailing the whole book, John Harrison managed to overcome strong prejudice, forcing him to prove himself against increasingly stacked trials, biased judges, and the beliefs of the day. His sheer determination is an inspiration. Though he is not without his own faults. He had created a functional enough clock in 1736 (the H1), and spent nearly 30 years improving it to the the watch sized H4 in 1761 which proved the effectiveness of his invention. I wonder how much sailors of the day would have appreciated knowing longitude 30 years earlier.

      The book is a good, fun read. It's short enough to read in just a couple sittings and entertaining. As a fan of microhistories, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a history, but by no means is it a must read for anyone either.
    • 3/5
      Interesting read that details how the Prime Meridian came to be set in England and how a lone clock maker clashed with bureaucracy of the longitude commission.
    • 5/5
      I cannot know how accurate this book is, nor do I care too much. I enjoyed reading this book. It was a quick and easy read, and my interest was held the entire length of it. I felt like I learned much that I hitherto had not known and that is good enough for me. I have read that there are more exhaustive and accurate books, but do not care to look them up and read them. I recommend this book to any and all.
    • 5/5
      I take it all back! All the nasty stuff I've said about Columbus! I now understand that it is amazing that any naval captain ever got anywhere close to where he wanted to go. Now, the fact that Columbus thought he had found North America when he landed in Central America, or thought he had found an island when he actually had found North America....and who knows where he thought he was when he washed up on the islands... well Sobel has convinced me that he really had found "something."This is the story of the intrigue and far from fair-play that the Longitude commission indulged in, rather highlighting the later United Kingdom's general attitude toward their colonial conquests in Africa, the Middle East, India, and yes, the Americas. Play by Marquess of Queensberry rules they didn't. Partially it was ignorance of what Harrison''s watch could actually do, but part of it was really the evil machinations orchestrated by Nevil Maskelyne.Definitely a short book worth the time to read!
    • 3/5
      I thought this would be a more interesting book than it was, but kudos to Dava Sobel for giving it a good try. The story is about a man who spent his lifetime making a clock and the author stretches it out with information about competition, unfair treatment by the scientific community, and other methods used to determine longitude, but ultimately it's still about making a clock.

      Docked a star from my rating because there were times it read like the author was trying to get the word count up by using sentences with just too unnecessary words thrown in.

      I chose this book because of my interest in history and geography but ultimately that may have been the reason I found it uninteresting. There just wasn't enough new information for me. I would recommend this book to the type of person who likes to watch intricate youtube videos of how other metal things are crafted.


    • 4/5
      The quest to build the longitudinal clock, enabling sea traffic and perfecting the clockwork mechanism which European history hinged upon.

      A quick and fascinating read.
    • 2/5
      I found this so boring. I thought I would like it
    • 3/5
      Finding the latitude in the 17th century was straightforward, but finding the longitude was extremely difficult. This compromised the safety of all seafarers, and in one particular incident around 200 lives were lost of the Isles of Scilly.

      The admiralty of the day decided to set up a Longitude board and offer a prize to the inventor of a method to reliably calculate the longitude of a vessel. Various methods were tried, including one that took lunar sightings developed by Nevil Maskelyne.

      Enter John Harrison. He taught himself to read and write, and was a proficient musician, his real talent was clocks. His first wooden pendulum clock is still in existence, held at The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. And it was this talent that he put to good use to start to develop the devices that would enable the navy to know their exact longitude.

      His first attempt at a device was called H-1 and has lots of new technologies including frictionless bearings, the gridiron pendulum and the grasshopper escapment. This clock lost a second a month compared to the best clocks of the day that would loose 1 minute a day. The clock is still working.

      He presented the drawings to the Longitude board, and they gave permission to make one. The clock passed the tests, but as it improved the board decided to amend the original tests make them tougher. Harrison went on to develop 4 versions to meet these changing requirements, culminating in a 5 inch diameter watch that did the same as the H-1.

      By this time Nevil Maskelyne was head of the Longitude board. He made it extremely difficult for Harrison as he wanted his preferred lunar method to win. Harrison complied with the demanding requirements, and surrendered his clocks to the board. It was only with the kings intervention that the reward was finally given to Harrison.

      Sobel has written quite a dry account of this tale of engineering excellence and political manipulation. Whilst it get all the facts across, it doesn't convey the emotions of the men involved.
    • 5/5
      Tore through my lovely new Folio edition. My old paperback was sent to me on Hawkbill from my grandparents after a trip to London.I've thought in my dotage I would work on model ships, but perhaps clocks would be sharper.
    • 4/5
      Short, but interesting story about the development of the chronometer. I didn't understand all the technical stuff, but still thought this to be a fascinating account of the work, trials and tribulations that went into conceiving this important instrument.
    • 4/5
      This is a fairly short (175 pages of text in trade paperback size) nonfiction account of the attempts to find a way to determine longitude at sea. It is primarily about John Harrison, inventor of the chronometer. There are no footnotes (intentionally by the author), but there is a two-page bibliography and four-page index.
    • 3/5
      Rhetorical armaments fully deployed in this little gem. It’s like a cameo with it’s fine detail in a tiny space. Remarkable really how Sobel has managed to do that with a subject where each page could be expanded into its own book. A very enjoyable introduction to the subject.
    • 4/5
      A very enjoyable story about a rogue clock-maker who solved the longitude problem and made ocean going ships destination more accurate.I read this over a few months over break at work (its a short book). Its well written, with an interesting cast of characters, and has a well described history of longitude.Essentially, the problem is that its easy enough to figure out what latitude you are on (this can be figured from the stars), but longitude is a completely different story. Wrong guesses have doomed entire ships. Many people worked on it, and while using time was always a possibility, it would't work without a very accurate clock. So people went to the stars, and the moons on Jupiter, or even blowing off canons to indicate where the port was. But it wasn't until John Harrison, a rogue clock-maker, made his first clock (H-1) for navigation, that this problem was solved.Dava Sobel is so good at writing books about scientific discover - she manages to right a good story while keeping to the facts. This book is no different - the people involved come to life, from John Harrison, wary to give up his secrets, to the board who kept changing the rules of the longitude test because they didn't like an outsider winning the prize. Its also a short novel, and can be read in a few days.
    • 4/5
      As a previous reader noted in pencil a through the volume I read - illustrations please! Very readable, a nice calculation on what level of detail would keep a casual reader interested while fairly informed. A horologist would find this skimpy indeed, but such are not the intended audience.
    • 5/5
      Well written and engaging as you traverse difficult content for the non-initiated.
    • 5/5
      It is awe-inspiring to learn how "Longitude" problem remained unsolved for nearly 300 years, beginning times of Christopher Columbus and until 18th century. It baffled greatest minds during the Age of Discovery (1400-1900). This problem got so serious with disappearance of countless sea vessels and lives that Britain had to announce famed Longitude Act of 1714 and £20,000 prize money. It was for anyone who could present practical solution to longitude. Thus got established the Royal observatory at Greenwich (NOW the centre of time and space, prime meridian, zero degree longitude). Astronomers and scientists were believed to solve the problem by observing movements of moon with Lunar Distance Method. However, the problem was solved by ingenuity of a carpenter turned clock maker John Harrison!! What followed was the brouhaha with nasty politics to stop him from claiming longitude prize! It uncovers how Sir Isaac Newton pilfered Flamsteed's 'Star Catalogue' and published its pirated copies. The trials also marked crooked interests of astronomers, scientists, navigators and horologists including Galileo, Einstein, Newton, Captain Cook, Edmond Halley, Nevil Maskelyne, Royal society etc. Harrison finally claimed the prize almost 45 years after he made now famously called H1, the first non-pendulum clock in the world for precision time keeping. Remarkable account of how this invention eased mapping and clocking the world as we know today. All of Age of Discovery, Navigation, Hydrography, Cartography, Longitude, Clocks & Watches, Astronomy can be found interlinked in this book.
    • 3/5
      Finally got around to reading this one after finding it at a garage sale; it’s a little disappointing, considering the hype and TV-movie deal. The book developed from an article author Dava Sobel wrote for her college alumna magazine. She is, in fact, and excellent writer and this is a pleasant, if quick, read. It suffers by forcing the story of John Harrison into a very standard formula – self-taught genius versus the Establishment. This results in a focus on the personalities involved rather than the scientific problem. I suppose that’s inevitable in a popular book; my own prejudices desire some celestial mechanics illustrations and details on how the Harrison marine chronometers actually worked; I suspect if Ms. Sobel had asked me for advice she could have turned a New York Times bestseller into a quickly-remaindered engineering textbook. You can buy replicas; I don’t see a price anywhere but I suspect it falls in the “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” category. There’s an illustrated version of Longitude available; if it has more than just pretty marine landscapes it could be very good indeed.
    • 4/5
      While this isn't normally a book I would have picked up when I read those cover summaries, for some reason, this really caught my eye and sparked a genuine interest in this part of maritime history.Historically accurate (I did a bit of research on a few points in the book), written nicely, and the fact that I've seen some of these clocks at The Clockmakers' Museum from my trip to London a few years back, definitely made it a page turner for me.
    • 5/5
      Great book on John Harrison and his contribution to maritime history and time keeping.
    • 4/5
      This is a brief and to-the-point narration of the history of the search for determining longitude and the struggles of John Harrison to build a clock that could withstand the motion, humidity, and temperature variations of sea voyages. This endeavor was so crucial to the exploration of the world that the Parliament offered a huge award for the creation of a method to determine longitude. What is nice about this book is that there are no deviations from the story - no detailed and ponderous history of navigation since the Stone Age, no biographies beyond what is pertinent to the story. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.
    • 3/5
      Interesting account of one clockmaker's fight against an astronomy biased establishment during the quest for longitude. Ships could easily determine their latitude but longitude depended on knowing where they were in time relative to the time at a known location. They could relatively easily determine their local time at sea but would not know what GMT was for example. There were no clocks that could keep time accurately enough, especially considering the on board conditions that prevailed on the ships of the time. A huge reward was offered to anyone who could come up with a means of determining longitude and this was governed over by the Longitude Board. It was generally perceived that the answer lay in the heavens and it was a problem for the much respected astronomers of the time to solve. Step forward Mr Harrison and his clocks.
      An enjoyable and informative quick read.
    • 4/5
      This is an engagingly written non-specialist account of the hunt during the 18th century for an accurate way to measure longitude, and thus more accurately track sea voyages between west and east. While latitude had been understood since antiquity and has an absolute meaning relative to the north and south poles, longitude is entirely relative and can in principle be measured from any artificial line connecting the poles. The hunt was turned into a race by the British Parliament's Longitude Act of 1714, establishing a Board to consider proposals to measure longitude accurately, with a top prize of £20,000 for anyone able to measure it to within half a degree of accuracy. Why such a high profile prize? Ignorance of longitude was very costly, including costing the lives of many seamen, including two thousand in one incident in 1707 when four warships ran aground off the Scilly Isles. Ignorance also cost economically as it meant marine trade routes had to follow a very narrow safe path which restricted commercial growth.The early years of the hunt for a solution were dominated on the one hand by greats such as Isaac Newton, John Flamsteed and Edmond Halley, and on the other hand, by numerous lesser players proposing theoretically ingenious but flawed and wildly impractical solutions, involving for example, anchoring fleets of ships at regular intervals across the ocean, which would fire signals at regular intervals so that passing vessels could measure their distance from land to east or west. Later on the race was a battle between the astronomers and the engineers, between those who saw the solution in the movements of the stars and planets and those who saw technology as the answer. In truth, both were partly right. The movements of celestial bodies had a part to play, but had in practice to be complemented by a mechanical device that could provide a practical and quick solution to the long standing problem. Step forward one of the unsung heroes of science and technology - John Harrison, master clockmaker, who rose from obscure and humble origins in Lincolnshire to become one of the great innovators of all time. He produced four progressively simpler and smaller timepieces, the last of which H-4 was the prototype for slightly later, smaller mass produced timepieces that in the hands of ships' captains were a contributory factor in the expansion of British sea power in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His arch rival was the Rev Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, a man not above changing the rules of the race to suit the astronomers vs. the mechanics. While Maskelyne behaved shabbily, he did make his own considerable contributions to lunar observations as part of the solution, and was responsible for establishing Greenwich as the prime meridian from which longitude would be measured across the world thereafter. But Harrison is the hero of this story, a pioneer who, in the author's words, "With his marine clocks, ... tested the waters of space-time. He succeeded, against all odds, in using the fourth—temporal—dimension to link points on the three-dimensional globe. He wrested the world’s whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch."A good read, though some footnotes would be good and, even more so, a few diagrams and illustrations.
    • 3/5
      subtitled *The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time*Although this book was only 175 pages long, it took me longer than I expected it to, to get through it. This is probably due to the fact that there was much more *math* and mathematical detail than my non-math brain could process and rather than just skim and skip, I tried to get through it all. The story itself, of John Harrison and his valiant attempts at inventing an instrument that would accurately determine longitude, the most pressing scientific challenge of his time, was fascinating. He was treated so badly by the organization which sponsored the competition to award the inventor; it was truly shameful. I guess this aspect of human nature hasn't changed much over time. There are 2 quotes, one from the beginning of the book, and one from the very end, that I liked:"...Time is to clock as mind is to brain.. The clock or watch somehow contains the time. And yet time refuses to be bottled up like a genie stuffed in a lamp. Whether it flows as sand or turns on wheels within wheels, time escapes irretrievably, while we watch...when the mainspring winds down so far that the clock hands hold still as death, time itself keeps on. The most we can hope a watch to do is to mark that progress. And since time sets its own tempo, like a heartbeat or an ebb tide, timepieces don't really keep time. They just keep up with it, if they're able.""With is marine clocks, John Harrison tested the waters of space-time. He succeeded, against all odds, in using the fourth - temporal - dimension to link points on the three-dimensional globe. He wrested the word's whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch."Sobel is a good storyteller. Her description, at the beginning of the final chapter, of standing on the prime meridian of the world and how it is lit up these days in Greenwich, at the Old Royal Observatory, makes me want to see it for myself.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of the development of a clock accurate enough to measure longitude while at sea. As someone who was almost completely ignorant of pre-GPS maritime navigation techniques, this was fascinating to me. I'd never given much thought to how one finds their location on the ocean where there are no landmarks save the heavens. The descriptions of the clocks were marvelous; now I want to run off to Greenwich to see them. Though maritime adventure stories don't interest me, the history of maritime technology certainly does. The difficulties faced at sea are so different from those on land, and the ingenious methods of overcoming them make for good reading.A note on the audio: Kate Reading is not my favorite narrator. Her stilted cadence has ruined more than one audiobook for me, to the point where I avoid listening to books she reads. However, I decided to give this nonfiction a chance, and it wasn't too bad. I think a lot of the problem in other books is her atrocious attempt at an American accent. Using her natural British accent here, it sounded much more natural. It also helped that there wasn't much in the way of dialogue.
    • 1/5
      I found the story boring and tedious. The book is about the history of the development of methods for measuring longitude. The author did not provide sufficient information on the way in which the timepieces were to be used to measure longitudes. The book was heavy on history and weak on science. I would have been more interested in the details of how the clock mechanisms functioned and less on the rivalries of the inventors. There was some information provided that was interesting but it was bogged down by trivial facts. I recommend the book to an insomniac.
    • 3/5
      I wish I'd read this instead of the little book that was almost entirely text. The story, and the science, and the engineering, all make more sense now that I've paged through this one. I still can't recommend it though unless you're already geeky about historical navigation and clockmaking, though.
    • 2/5
      The author tells about the search for a method to determine longitude, badly needed to safely navigate oceans. It aptly explains the two methods (by celestial bodies or by a ship-borne clock) that were developed, their advantages and disadvantages, and the inventions necessitated by each.The author mentions in their Acknowledgments that this book was expanded from a magazine article. Unfortunately, the book seemed overly long, and perhaps should have remained as a magazine article.

    Book preview

    Longitud - Flora Casas

    Índice

    Portada

    Agradecimientos

    1. Líneas imaginarias

    2. El mar antes del tiempo

    3. A la deriva en un universo mecánico

    4. El tiempo en una botella

    5. El polvo de la simpatía

    6. El premio

    7. Diario de un carpintero

    8. El saltamontes se hace a la mar

    9. Las manecillas del reloj celeste

    10. El reloj de diamantes

    11. La prueba del fuego y del agua

    12. Historia de dos retratos

    13. El segundo viaje del capitán James Cook

    14. La producción en masa del genio

    15. En el patio del meridiano

    Fuentes

    Bibliografía

    Créditos

    Para mi madre,

    Betty Gruber Sobel,

    navegante de cuatro estrellas

    que puede guiarse por los cielos en la travesía

    pero siempre circula en coche por Canarsie.

    AGRADECIMIENTOS

    Quisiera darle las gracias a William J. H. Andrewes, conservador de la Colección David R Wheatland de Instrumentos Científicos Históricos de la Universidad de Harvard, por haberme iniciado en las tradiciones y los conocimientos sobre la longitud y por haber patrocinado el simposio sobre este tema que tuvo lugar en Cambridge entre el 4 y el 6 de noviembre de 1993.

    Mi agradecimiento igualmente a los editores de la Harvard Magazine –sobre todo a John Bethel, Christopher Reed, Jean Martin y Janet Hawkins– por haberme enviado a dicho simposio y haber publicado mi artículo al respecto en el número de marzo-abril de 1994.

    También les agradezco a los jueces del Consejo para el Avance y Apoyo de la Educación, sección de publicaciones, que premiaran mi escrito sobre la longitud con la medalla de oro de 1994 al mejor artículo de una revista de alumnos.

    Deseo expresar especial agradecimiento a George Gibson, editor de Walker and Company, por haber leído ese artículo, por considerarlo el comienzo de un libro y por llamarme inesperadamente para decírmelo.

    Y a Michael Carlisle, vicepresidente de la William Morris Agency, mis más expresivas gracias por haber representado este proyecto con una habilidad aún mayor que la de costumbre.

    1

    Líneas imaginarias

    Cuando me siento juguetón, utilizo los meridianos

    de longitud y los paralelos de latitud

    como jábega y rastreo el océano Atlántico en

    busca de ballenas.

    MARK TWAIN, Vida en el Misisipi

    Un miércoles que fui de excursión, siendo pequeña, mi padre me compró una bola de alambre con cuentas que me fascinó. Con solo tocarlo, el juguete se desmoronaba y formaba una espiral plana entre las palmas de las manos, o bien se abría como una esfera hueca. Redonda, parecía una minúscula Tierra; sus alambres unidos con bisagras seguían el mismo perfil de los círculos intersecantes que había visto en el globo terráqueo de mi aula en el colegio: las finas líneas negras de la latitud y la longitud. Las cuentas de colores, muy pocas, se deslizaban al azar por los senderos de alambre, cual barcos en alta mar.

    También mi padre me llevó a hombros por la Quinta Avenida hasta el Centro Rockefeller, donde nos detuvimos a contemplar la estatua de Atlas, que portaba el Cielo y la Tierra.

    El orbe de bronce que sostiene Atlas en alto, al igual que el juguete de alambre entre mis manos, era un mundo transparente, definido por líneas imaginarias: el ecuador, la eclíptica, el trópico de Cáncer, el trópico de Capricornio, el círculo ártico, el meridiano principal. Incluso entonces ya era capaz de reconocer, en la retícula del papel cuadriculado superpuesto al globo, un poderoso símbolo de todas las tierras y aguas reales del planeta.

    En la actualidad, las líneas de la latitud y la longitud ejercen mayor autoridad de lo que hubiera podido imaginar hace cuarenta y tantos años, porque se mantienen fijas en tanto la configuración del mundo varía bajo ellas, con los continentes atravesando a la deriva los mares en expansión y las fronteras nacionales, que se vuelven a trazar repetidamente en función de la guerra o la paz.

    De niña aprendí el truco para recordar la diferencia entre latitud y longitud. Las líneas de latitud, los paralelos, se mantienen realmente paralelas entre sí al ceñir el globo desde el ecuador hasta los polos con una serie de anillos concéntricos que van reduciéndose progresivamente. Los meridianos de longitud funcionan al revés: se curvan desde el polo norte hasta el polo sur y viceversa, formando grandes círculos del mismo tamaño, de modo que todos convergen en los extremos de la Tierra.

    Las líneas de latitud y de longitud empezaron a entrecruzarse en nuestra visión del mundo en la antigüedad, al menos tres siglos antes del nacimiento de Cristo. Hacia el 150, el cartógrafo y astrónomo Tolomeo ya las había trazado en los veintisiete mapas de su primer atlas mundial. En esta obra fundamental enumera también todos los topónimos, en un índice alfabético, consignando la latitud y la longitud de cada uno de ellos con toda la exactitud que le permitían los relatos de los viajeros. Tolomeo solo contaba con una apreciación teórica para un mundo más extenso. Según un concepto erróneo de su época, cualquiera que viviese por debajo del ecuador se deformaría y se derretiría a causa del terrible calor.

    Para Tolomeo, el ecuador señalaba el paralelo cero. No lo eligió arbitrariamente, sino que lo tomó de fuentes autorizadas, de sus predecesores, quienes lo habían deducido de la naturaleza al observar los movimientos de los cuerpos celestes. El Sol, la Luna y los planetas pasan casi exactamente por encima del ecuador. Del mismo modo, los trópicos de Cáncer y de Capricornio, otros dos conocidos paralelos, son situados en su posición en dependencia del Sol, señalando los límites septentrional y meridional del movimiento relativo del Sol en el transcurso del año.

    Ahora bien, Tolomeo gozaba de plena libertad para situar el meridiano principal, la línea de longitud cero, donde quisiera. Decidió que pasara por las islas Afortunadas (en la actualidad Canarias y Madeira), frente a la costa noroccidental de África. Los cartógrafos de épocas posteriores trasladaron el meridiano principal a las islas Azores y las de Cabo Verde, así como a Roma, Copenhague, Jerusalén, San Petersburgo, Pisa, París y Filadelfia, entre otros lugares, hasta que finalmente quedó fijado en Londres. Dada la rotación de la Tierra, una línea cualquiera trazada de polo a polo puede servir tanto como cualquier otra en cuanto que línea de referencia inicial. La ubicación del meridiano principal es una decisión puramente política.

    En esto consiste la auténtica diferencia, la fundamental, entre latitud y longitud, más allá de la superficial de dirección que cualquier niño puede apreciar: el paralelo de latitud cero está determinado por las leyes de la naturaleza, mientras que el meridiano de longitud cero se mueve, como las arenas del tiempo. Con tal diferencia, hallar la latitud es un juego de niños, y determinar la longitud, sobre todo en el mar, un dilema de adultos, con el que se debatieron las mentes más esclarecidas del mundo durante la mayor parte de la historia de la humanidad.

    Cualquier marino que se precie puede calcular la latitud mediante la duración del día o la altitud del Sol, o bien según estrellas indicadoras conocidas por encima del horizonte. Cristóbal Colón siguió un camino recto al atravesar el Atlántico cuando «navegó por el paralelo» en su travesía de 1492, y no cabe duda de que con este método habría llegado a las Indias si no se hubieran interpuesto las Américas.

    Por el contrario, el tiempo influye en la medición de los meridianos de longitud. Para averiguar la longitud en el mar hay que saber qué hora es en el barco y, también, en el puerto base u otro lugar de longitud conocida en ese mismo momento. Los dos tiempos reales permiten que el navegante convierta la diferencia horaria en separación geográfica. Dado que la Tierra tarda veinticuatro horas en efectuar una revolución completa de trescientos sesenta grados, una hora supone la vigésimo cuarta parte de una rotación, o sea quince grados. Y, por consiguiente, cada hora de diferencia entre el barco y el punto de partida supone un avance de quince grados de longitud hacia el este o el oeste. Cada día, cuando el navegante vuelve a ajustar el reloj del barco según el mediodía local en el mar, en el momento en que el Sol llega al punto más alto del cielo, consultando después el reloj del puerto base, cada hora de diferencia entre ambos se traduce en otros quince grados de longitud.

    Esos quince grados corresponden asimismo a una distancia recorrida. En el ecuador, donde es mayor el perímetro de la Tierra, quince grados abarcan mil millas, unos mil ochocientos cincuenta y dos kilómetros. Sin embargo, al norte o al sur de esta línea disminuye el valor de cada grado. Un grado de longitud equivale a cuatro minutos de tiempo en todo el mundo, pero decrece en términos de distancia, pasando de sesenta y ocho millas (unos ciento veinte kilómetros) en el ecuador a prácticamente nada en los polos.

    Hasta la época de los relojes de péndulo, y también durante la misma, resultaba totalmente imposible saber la hora exacta en dos lugares distintos a la vez, prerrequisito para calcular la longitud que en la actualidad se determina fácilmente con un par de relojes de pulsera baratos. En el puente de un barco bamboleante, los relojes se atrasaban, se adelantaban o se paraban. Con los cambios normales de temperatura que se producían al trasladarse de un país frío de origen a una zona comercial tropical, el aceite lubricante de los relojes se fluidificaba o se espesaba, por lo que los elementos metálicos se dilataban o se contraían, con consecuencias realmente desastrosas. Un ascenso o descenso de la presión barométrica, o las sutiles variaciones de la gravedad terrestre entre una latitud y otra, podían también contribuir a que un reloj se atrasara o se adelantara.

    Puesto que no existía un método práctico para determinar la longitud, todo gran capitán de la época de las exploraciones podía perderse en el mar aunque contara con los mejores mapas y brújulas de que se disponía por entonces. Desde Vasco da Gama hasta Vasco Núñez de Balboa, desde Fernando de Magallanes hasta sir Francis Drake, todos llegaron, mal que bien, a donde se habían propuesto bajo el control de unas fuerzas que se atribuían a la suerte o a la gracia de Dios.

    Cuando aumentó el número de barcos de vela que se hacían a la mar para conquistar o explorar nuevos territorios, librar guerras o transportar oro y otros productos entre y desde tierras extranjeras, la riqueza de las naciones empezó a flotar sobre los océanos. Sin embargo, ninguna nave contaba con medios fiables para establecer su posición, y morían incontables marinos cuando su destino surgía repentinamente del mar y les cogía por sorpresa. En un solo accidente, acaecido el 22 de octubre de 1707 en las islas Sorlingas, cerca del extremo suroccidental de Inglaterra, encallaron cuatro buques de guerra británicos que regresaban a su país, perdiendo la vida casi dos mil hombres.

    La intensa búsqueda de una solución al problema de la longitud duró cuatro siglos en todo el continente europeo. La mayoría de las testas coronadas desempeñó en uno u otro momento un papel importante en la historia de la longitud, destacándose en ello los reyes Jorge III de Inglaterra y Luis XIV de Francia, Navegantes como William Bligh, capitán del Bounty, y el gran James Cook, que realizó tres largos viajes de exploración y experimentación hasta su violenta muerte en Hawái, llevaron a bordo de sus navíos los métodos más prometedores para poner a prueba su exactitud y viabilidad.

    Los astrónomos de mayor renombre se enfrentaron al desafío que representaba la longitud recurriendo al universo mecánico. Galileo Galilei, Jean Dominique Cassini, Christiaan Huygens, sir Isaac Newton y Edmond Halley, tan famoso por el cometa, requirieron la ayuda de la Luna y las estrellas. Se fundaron magníficos observatorios en París, Londres y Berlín con el objetivo expreso de calcular la longitud valiéndose del cielo. Entre tanto, otras mentes menos brillantes ideaban sistemas basados en los gemidos de un perro herido o en las explosiones de cañones situados en buques de señales estratégicamente anclados en mar abierto.

    En el transcurso de su lucha por establecer la longitud, los científicos efectuaron otros descubrimientos que cambiaron su visión del universo. Entre ellos se cuentan los primeros cálculos exactos del peso de la Tierra, la distancia hasta las estrellas y la velocidad de la luz.

    A medida que pasaba el tiempo y se apreciaba que ningún método daba resultado, la búsqueda de una solución al problema de la longitud fue adquiriendo proporciones legendarias, resultando comparable a la búsqueda de la fuente de la eterna juventud, el secreto del movimiento perpetuo o la fórmula para convertir el plomo en oro. Los Gobiernos de las grandes potencias marítimas –España, los Países Bajos y ciertas ciudades-Estado italianasrenovaban periódicamente el entusiasmo ofreciendo enormes premios por un método viable.

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