
S1E7: A Clock in the Sky
Slate Technology
00:00
Prize Challenges and the Quest for Longitude
This chapter delves into the history of prize challenges and their impact on innovation, focusing on the British government's famous tech prize in the 18th century and its influence on jump-starting innovation. It explores the problem of determining longitude at sea, the efforts of the British government to solve it, and introduces John Harrison, an individual with no formal education who believed he could build a clock that works at sea.
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