Talk:John Harrison

message: Put your text for the new page here.
my name is MR VIVIAN C KENNEY  i just built a demo model of the grasshopper escapement for showing at the annual SYDNEY REGIONAL OCT.18-19 I will be representing MELBOURNE CHAPTER 122 A.A.H.S. My clock is large and made from wood. The escape wheel being 20 inches diam.and is hand made etc.Itis weight driven and runs beautifly.   R.T.GOULD did a drawing in 1930 and i followed it plus harrison etc. Turret clock restoration is always of interest to me and my email is  jkenney[at]optusnet.com.au   p.s. i cannot type the symbol for the[at] in my address so please rectify when writing to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.96.69  (talk • contribs) 16:20, 10 October 2002
does any schematic exist of john harrison's famous H4 pocketwatch chronometer?  these should of course naturally be in public domain beyond any patent or copyright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.197.240.11  (talk • contribs) 00:53, 21 July 2004
* There are diagrams and descriptive text in "The Marine Chronometer" by Rupert Gould.  I don't know about the copyright on that (it's Gould's work).  The book was originally published in 1923 but reprinted recently, so perhaps the copyright was renewed.  Also, Gould references an article in the Horological Journal, May 1878, by H.M.Frodsham.  Apparently Frodsham examined Kendall's copy of H4 and made drawings.  I would assume those copyrights have expired -- but I have not seen that article.  Finally, if you're anywhere near Greenwich you might go there and look at what they have. Paul Koning 13:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: EXCERPT FROM TEXT:
Yet the timekeeping device with such accuracy would eventually also allow the determination of longitude accurately—whether night time, despite fog and mist, and during other varieties of inclement weather that defeated other solutions, making the device a fundamental key to the modern age.
COMMENT:
this does not seem to be entirely true - you can only determine your position if you know that it is noon locally (or any other specified time) and you know what Greenwich time is at the same moment. So you do need visibility to determine your position -- it wont work in for or mist.
Am I mistaken????
86.142.45.255 14:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: Added source for inflation £20k --> £3mm, but could not make it work --- maybe someone can look through the source text for the ref /ref tags and see what to do to do it properl
thx
86.142.45.255 14:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorted, you just needed to add "" to the References section at the end to allow the reference to be visible and work properly. SFC9394 14:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Currency

message: Fixing links, I came across the link to pitch in the sentence:
:"...ble to function at the odd angles and pitching and yawing typical..."
For now, I've removed the link because I wasn't sure which pitch it was referring to. There's Pitch (flight) and Blade pitch. I know this dude was about the sea, but maybe flight pitch is roughly the same? :S Marc 09:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambig link

message: I can't believe there isn't a picture on here of these things. Seems like a pretty obvious inclusion! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.174.157  (talk • contribs) 13:08, 13 July 2007
: If someone visits the Maritime museum or lives nearby, please take a few pictures.  Brholden 19:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes please.  All the pictures I have are covered by copyright. Paul Koning 17:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have added my picture of H5 taken at the Clockmaker's Museum. Unfortunately when I visited Greenwich I was told that photography was not allowed. Racklever 19:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is correct, photography is sadly not allowed but having seen them personally I can testify to the fact that they are exquisitely beautiful machines. 83.104.249.240 (talk) 22:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Images added. Shot without flash, and uploaded in low resolution to discourage commercial re-use. Phantom Photographer (talk) 19:11, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Howabout a picture of the bloody clocks?

message: Should it be so that the article titled John Harrison be almost entirely about the clock Harrison made? Would it be strange if a larger part of the article spoke of Harrison's life? -- 213.6.11.148 (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article needs to be more focused on Harrison's life, rather than the clock issue. I can find some books on Harrison once I'm back at my university, and I will expand on the details of his life. Nishkid64 (talk) 19:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Harrison? 

message: Under the heading "The Longitude Watches" there is a sentence which says "When the ship reached Jamaica the watch was only two miles in error" Shouldn't the sentence say something like "the calculation of longitude made using the watch was only two miles in error"? Richerman (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The one is simply a shorthand for the other. Paul Koning (talk) 16:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well of course I know that, but what I'm saying is that it's bad use of English that could be improved. An encyclopaedia article should be clear and unambiguous. Richerman (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fair enough, I'll track down the source data for better text along the lines you suggested. Paul Koning (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Paul, It's generally a very well-written article and I didn't want to change it myself in case my interpretation was wrong. Richerman (talk) 12:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I extended the text to give errors in terms of time as well as distance, citing the pages in Gould where I found that information.  Thanks for the improvements.  Paul Koning (talk) 16:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a lot clearer now, thanks. Richerman (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A watch doesn't measure miles 

message: I removed this:
:
from the section The longitude watches.
Greenwich did not need to be a "standard" at the time.  It was simply a reference point on the globe - one where many astronomical observations were made to establish the positions of the fixed stars and of the planets and moon over time.  The British used this as a reference point simply because this the one they had established.  I don't see that a specific reference is needed for this.  --Michael Daly (talk) 06:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Greenland as a standard

message: According to this Guardian article, Harrison claimed to be able to build a pendulum clock that was accurate to within 1 second in 100 days.  The article also says that this has now been confirmed by building a clock to his design.  I think something on this should go in the article. Yaris678 (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with this. Was coming here to mention it myself. 220 of Borg 09:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool.  This has been added in these edits by WhosAsking and JezGrove.  Looks good to me! Yaris678 (talk) 16:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Designs for pendulum clock after maritime chronometers 

message: User talk:RichardSDunn's good faith edit has removed the link to Scilly naval disaster of 1707 on the grounds that it can’t be proved to be a navigational error.  Whilst WP:VNT applies and I agree, the real cause of this massive wartime Naval disaster is irrelevant here, the fact that the Admiralty ‘chose to blame it on navigation’ & hence put up the money  is relevant and was covered in the link.  I’ll restore it, add a new reference and invite Richard to discuss it as per wp:BRD if he still objects.  JRPG (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance of Scilly naval disaster of 1707 

message: Currently  (January  2016)   the clock exhibit is not in London but is on tour.     The exhibit is currently in Mystic Seaport Connecticut and is slated to be moved to Sydney before being returned to London.     You should correct the statement, "Today the restored H1, H2, H3 and H4 timepieces can be seen on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich."     You should also not use the term "today" but should replace it with the current date.    Arydberg (talk) 13:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clock exhibit on tour.    

message: "Harrison had also come to this conclusion and abandoned the idea of the 'Sea clock' as a timekeeper, realizing that a watch-sized timekeeper would be more successful as it could incorporate a balance which, though smaller, oscillated at a much higher speed. "
How come that a higher oscillating frequency would imply higher accurracy?  A H1 copy has just run for 100 days with less than 1 s error and the H1 are moving fairly slow. KjellG (talk) 22:41, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Speed" of balace? 

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I have just modified 2 external links on John Harrison. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081219102103/http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/pdf/Gould-Harrison-longitude-JBetts.pdf to http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/pdf/Gould-Harrison-longitude-JBetts.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on John Harrison. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090623222750/http://www.fhs.ch/en/perso/?perso=sully to http://www.fhs.ch/en/perso/?perso=sully
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120509202143/http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/116077-1/Dava+Sobel.aspx to http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/116077-1/Dava+Sobel.aspx
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The ‘In Literature’ section might include a reference to the verse ‘’Five Visions of Captain Cook’’ by Kenneth Slessor which includes the following:
’Two chronometers the captain had,
One by Arnold that ran like mad,
One by Kendal in a walnut case,
Poor devoted creature with a hangdog face…’ 2001:8003:3020:1C00:2922:AECC:E204:D5E3 (talk) 03:54, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kenneth Slessor 

message: I found a reference for this.  The words come from a letter that John Harrison wrote in 1753.  See https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/people/cooks-officers-and-crew-and-contemporaries/john-harrison-solving-the-problem-of-longitude
I am not sure how to add the citation but if there is a Wikipedian here who can then I ask the article is updated to reference this source. Sallen2006 (talk) 18:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Citation added as requested.  CaptainCookFan (talk) 12:26, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed for "extremely ill used by the gentlemen who I might have expected better treatment from" 

message: The article does not mention John Harrison's children even though one of them, William Harrison, was very important in the testing of H-4 and H-5. While Elizabeth and John are not as important to the chronometer (as little is known of Elizabeth and John died at eighteen) it would still help add to John Harrison's story to mention them. The article is very well written! 107.127.52.163 (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Harrison's Children 

message: I have put the clocks in list form but have retained the numbers given in the text. I don't know if the numbers are significant. In other words, are the clocks actually labelled number 1, number 2 etc, even as a serial number or a museum record number? If no numbers are intrinsic, the wording "number 1" etc. should be deleted. Humpster (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbering of clocks 

message: The statue of Harrison is intriguing. Unfortunately, the depiction is unclear from the photograph. Why is he turned away, standing on a barrel, and what is he doing with his hands? Possibly he is winding a watch, but he might just as well be filling his pipe or surreptitiously having a snack of winkles. Could someone with local knowledge please come up with some words such as "Harrison is depicted..." Thanks. Humpster (talk) 21:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:   description of the statue