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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3: Adrift in a Clockwork Universe.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did King Louis XIV of France complain about with more accurate measures of longitude?
(a) That maps based on stars were inaccurate.
(b) That sea travel became more treacherous.
(c) That the economic costs of not knowing longitude were bankrupting his country.
(d) That he was losing more territory to his astronomers than his enemies.

2. What does the term "dead reckoning" refer to?
(a) An advanced way to determine longitude using clocks.
(b) A primitive way to navigate at sea using estimates from a fixed point.
(c) An early way to navigate at sea using the position of stars and the moon.
(d) A way to verify the number of sailors lost at sea.

3. Harrison's clocks were referred to as:
(a) A technological reversal.
(b) A lump of metal.
(c) A moment in time.
(d) A magic box.

4. In the earliest lines of latitude, what marked the zero-degree line?
(a) The tropic of cancer.
(b) The prime meridian.
(c) The equator.
(d) The north pole.

5. Who developed the "lunar distance method" to longitude?
(a) Admiral Shovell.
(b) John Flamsteed.
(c) Johannes Werner.
(d) Ole Roemer.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Giovanni Domenico Cassini famous for?

2. What did the Longitude Act of 1714 establish?

3. What toy does the narrator play with at the beginning of Chapter 1: Imaginary Lines?

4. What disease afflicted many sailors at sea for long periods of time?

5. Before using clocks to navigate longitude, sailors used the __________.

(see the answer key)

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