The Dutch scientist Gemma Frisius was the first to propose the use of a chronometer to determine longitude in 1530.
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Before the 18th-century development of the marine chronometer by John Harrison and the lunar distance method, dead reckoning was the primary method of determining longitude available to mariners such as Christopher Columbus and John Cabot on their trans-Atlantic voyages.
Jonathan Betts MBE (born 29 January 1955) is Senior Specialist in horology at the Royal Observatory (National Maritime Museum), Greenwich, a horological scholar and author, and an expert on the first marine timekeepers created by John Harrison in the middle of the 18th century.
The term lunatic was also used by supporters of John Harrison and his marine chronometer method of determining longitude to refer to proponents of the Method of Lunar Distances, advanced by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne.
The invention of the marine chronometer in the late 18th century enabled Western explorers, such as Jean Francois de Galaup from France, William Robert Broughton from Britain, and Adam Johann von Krusenstern (Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern) from Russia, to measure time and longitudes on the sea precisely and map the detailed shape of the Sea of Japan.
The collection includes one of the early marine chronometers by Ferdinand Berthoud, a pendule sympathique by Breguet, a pocket watch with astronomical indications by Auch, several bespoke late 20th century watches by George Daniels, one of the few reproductions of the astrarium by De Dondi to name just a few highlights.
He designed a marine chronometer for Charles II, and designed and constructed the fountains at the Palace of Versailles (1682–1687).