Talking about telescopes and boats makes me want to plug one of my
favorite books, "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. it is roughly 10 yrs old
and discusses the development of the first marine chronomator by a
lone mechanical genius and how powerful men in the govt tried to deny
him credit for it. Every now and then I give a talk on the government
Small Business Innovative Research program where the govt funds high
risk technology projects and I use this as a history changing example
of govt funding of risky research. However, in this case the Brit
govt offered a prize for the first person to develop a practical
system of determining longitude aboard ship and then tried to deny it
to him when he was succesful.

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:57:51 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Talking about telescopes and boats makes me want to plug one of my
favorite books, "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. it is roughly 10 yrs old
and discusses the development of the first marine chronomator by a
lone mechanical genius and how powerful men in the govt tried to deny
him credit for it. Every now and then I give a talk on the government
Small Business Innovative Research program where the govt funds high
risk technology projects and I use this as a history changing example
of govt funding of risky research. However, in this case the Brit
govt offered a prize for the first person to develop a practical
system of determining longitude aboard ship and then tried to deny it
to him when he was succesful.

Yes, great little book.