the.com/longitude
the invisible vertical lines that took centuries and a clockmaker to finally pin down
means The angular distance of a place east or west of a reference meridian, measured in degrees, that fixes its position around the globe.
from From Latin 'longitudo,' meaning 'length,' from 'longus' ('long') — the same root that gives us 'long' itself. To ancient and medieval geographers, the world was 'longer' east-to-west than north-to-south, so this measure of east-west position naturally took the name for 'length,' while its perpendicular partner, latitude, came from Latin 'latitudo' ('width,' from 'latus,' 'broad').
- prize war
- Britain offered fortune in 1714 to crack it
- clock wins
- John Harrison's marine chronometer solved it, not the stars
- zero line
- Greenwich became prime meridian by 1884 vote
- time twins
- 15 degrees of longitude equals one hour
- the squeeze
- lines converge to a single point at poles
prime meridian — 0° longitude running through greenwich, london, established 1884 international meridian conference
international date line — 180° longitude in pacific ocean where calendar date changes
antimeridian — opposite of prime meridian at 180°, used for defining time zones