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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was built at Greenwich Park?
(a) The Royal Observatory.
(b) St. Paul's Cathedral.
(c) The Celestial Palace.
(d) The Paris Observatory.

2. When did clock makers begin to design clocks to measure longitude?
(a) 16th century.
(b) 14th century.
(c) 17th century.
(d) 15th century.

3. The Parliamentary committee assembled to respond to the problem of longitude relied on which two experts?
(a) Flamsteed and Thacker.
(b) Whiston and Ditton.
(c) Ptolomy and Jupiter.
(d) Newton and Halley.

4. Where did Harrison go to present his case to the Board of Longitude?
(a) Oxford.
(b) London.
(c) Paris.
(d) Edinburgh.

5. In AD 150, who plotted lines of longitude and latitude?
(a) Ptolemy.
(b) Galileo.
(c) Newton.
(d) Moses.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Harrison build that still function today?

2. What did Humphrey Ditton propose to use to solve the longitude problem?

3. Where does the quote at the beginning of Chapter 3: Adrift in a Clockwork Universe have the author dreaming he is locked in?

4. How long did Harrison work before receiving his monetary reward?

5. What does the term "dead reckoning" refer to?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe John Harrison.

2. What did the Longitude Act establish?

3. What were the problems with William Whiston's proposal for determining longitude?

4. Describe John Harrison's family.

5. What was the result of Hooke and Huygens not producing a successful clock that worked at sea?

6. What was King Charles II's role in solving the longitude problem?

7. Explain how longitude is affected by time.

8. What two advances did Thacker's chronometer make? Why did it still not work?

9. What was the main problem with the "lunar-distance" method?

10. What was the Longitude Act of 1714?

(see the answer keys)

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