OK with the GPS probably nobody even cares any more..but

Here is one guy that didn't need Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve show to tell him when its midnight.

I got interested in him after watching the show 'Longitude', which portrayed his quest for a 20,000 pound prize set up by the British Parliament for the person who could design a marine timekeeper capable of determining correct Latitude at sea to within 0.5 degrees.

Sailor of the day (1700's) had a big problem.. they kept crashing their ships into stuff because they didn't know where they were at sea. [whacko]

His most famous design, which finally did win the prize is his "H4" timepiece. It looks like a large pocket watch.

Here is a link if you are interested.

[url]www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/museum/harrison/h4.html[/url]

In 1759, at sea for 2 months, this clock kept time to within 5 seconds.

On land, over a 10 week period, it kept time to within 4.5 seconds.

Happy New Year everybody [beer]