Without an understanding of both latitude and longitude, sailing anywhere in the world was an iffy proposition and dangerous at best. John Harrison's passion and devotion to developing the timepiece that solved the longitude problem helped make the world a better place. You can read more about Dava Sobel on their web site . The pace of technological change and its effect on human history is mind-boggling. New discoveries and inventions are the natural result of combining the love of knowledge and creative problem solving.
Human history is full of tales of men whose adventurous lives changed the world.
And women have been changing the world, too, in big ways and small. Her passion for cartography, meteorology, and geology led her to study the stars. She became America's first woman astronomer, and in 1847, she was the first American to sight a comet. She was awarded the King of Denmark's Medal and was the first woman accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. You can read more about her in Sena Naslund's article in this month's newsstand edition of Victoria magazine .