books.google.com - Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they...http://books.google.com/books/about/Longitude.html?id=lW8DYSPa6fEC&q=nautical&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareLongitude