A self-taught carpenter solved a problem that had stumped Newton

Ships that couldn't measure longitude at sea ran aground or vanished, so in 1714 Britain offered a prize worth millions today to whoever solved it. Newton believed only astronomy could crack it; instead a Yorkshire carpenter, John Harrison, spent decades building marine chronometers precise enough to keep time at sea, effectively winning the prize with his H4 watch in the 1760s despite the Board of Longitude's reluctance to pay a mere clockmaker.

— Dava Sobel, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time — 1995
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