교육, 영국 정부가 막대한 상금 내놨는데 자기만의 방식으로 배운 목수가 전문가들 제치고 문제 해결했대

모키

어제

교육 기타 사업

영국에서 배 타고 가다 위치를 몰라서 2000명이나 바다에 빠져 죽는 사고가 있었대. 그래서 1707년에 영국 정부가 '경도 문제'를 해결할 사람에게 지금 돈으로 약 40억원의 상금을 걸었어ㅎㅎ 온 유럽의 유명 과학자들이 도전했는데 못 풀었다네. 근데 정규 교육도 받지 못한 요크셔 출신의 목수 존 해리슨이 해냈어! 그가 생각한 방법은 단순했어. '집에서의 정확한 시간과 바다에서의 정확한 시간을 알면 위치를 계산할 수 있다'는 거였지. 문제는 배 위에서 정확한 시간을 재는 시계를 만드는 게 어려웠대. 해리슨은 거의 40년 동안 연구해서 마침내 81일 항해에서 겨우 5초밖에 오차 안 나는 시계를 만들었어! 근데 웃긴 건 천문학자들로 구성된 심사위원회가 그에게 상금을 안 주려고 했다는 거야;;; 결국 해리슨은 80세 가까이 되서야 조지 3세 왕의 도움으로 상금을 받을 수 있었어. 지금 우리가 쓰는 GPS까지 모든 항해 기술의 시초가 된 발명인데 말이지ㅜㅜ 교육 받은 엘리트들이 학벌 없는 목수의 성과를 인정하기 싫어했던 이야기라서 더 흥미롭네 🦉

첨부 미디어

@NathanAMeeks

어제

We weren't born from the affluent.

Our education was cut shorter than many.

We self taught beyond many intellectuals by title.

No trust fund, no easy life.

We learned on our own and innovated.

Because we are lowly peasants our idea's are not fit of recognition or

인용된 트윗: In 1707, two thousand sailors DROWNED. Not because of a storm.

Because nobody could tell where they were at sea 🇬🇧

This was the longitude problem. The deadliest puzzle in science.

Parliament offered £20,000 to anyone who could solve it.

Nearly four million today.

Every great scientist in Europe tried. Newton. Halley. The finest minds alive.

All of them failed.

The man who solved it was a carpenter from Yorkshire.

His name was John Harrison.

No formal education. No university. No wealthy patron. He taught himself clockmaking.

Built timepieces out of wood.

His idea was “simple”. If you know the exact time at home and the exact time at sea, you can calculate exactly where you are.

The problem?

No clock could keep accurate time on a moving ship. Heat warps metal. Cold contracts it. The ocean never stops moving.

Harrison spent DECADES on it.

H1. Twenty years of work. Not good enough.

H2. Better. Still not enough.

H3. Seventeen years. Over 700 parts.

Still not enough.

Then he did something nobody expected. He stopped building clocks.

He built a watch.

H4. Thirteen centimetres across. The most important watch ever made.

They sent it across the Atlantic. Eighty-one days at sea.

When they arrived, it had lost five seconds.

Five seconds. In eighty-one days. The problem was solved.

But here's the uncomfortable part.

They didn't give him the prize.

The Board of Longitude was run by astronomers.

The very men who'd been trying to solve it their own way.

The Astronomer Royal was both judge and competitor.

They changed the rules. Demanded his designs. Refused to pay.

A working-class carpenter had beaten every astronomer in Europe. And the establishment couldn't accept it.

Harrison was nearly EIGHTY before he got justice.

He went directly to King George III.

The king tested the watch himself and told Harrison to petition Parliament with the king's full backing.

Parliament paid. Harrison died three years later.

After his death, every ship on earth carried a chronometer based on his design.

Every GPS satellite. Every ship's navigation. Every flight path. All of it traces back to a carpenter from Yorkshire who taught himself to build a watch.

His watches are still at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Still ticking.

Still perfect.

The establishment tried to bury him once.

We're not letting it happen again 👇 https://t.co/rih7iKwnvf

Be part of us.

Be proud of us. 🇬🇧