Episodes related to topic: navigation

Equinox Mapping the World

Creating a map of the world is hard, very hard. It took the best minds in the world centuries to get it right. From the disfigured maps of the Greeks to the elegant portolan charts of the Renaissance, people have been mapping the world for a long time. The main problem was with longitude, a puzzle that was not figured out until Harrison invented a chronometer that could keep track of time while moving (like in a ship). It was easy enough to figure out how far north or south you were, but east and west was an entirely different thing. Yet, the portolan charts were longitudinally accurate, and nobody knows how. Map making in an artform, and some of the secrets have been lost to us.