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Tabulating the heavens: Computing the Nautical Almanac in 18th-century England
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UNSPECIFIED (2003) Tabulating the heavens: Computing the Nautical Almanac in 18th-century England. IEEE ANNALS OF THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING, 25 (3). pp. 48-61. ISSN 1058-6180.
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Abstract
The question of how to accurately find longitude at sea was hotly debated in the mid-1700s. This article describes the lunar distance method, promoted by Nevil Maskelyne, the British Astronomer Royal. In 1767, Maskelyne began publishing the Nautical Almanac, which contained astronomical tables prepared by a small network of human computers during the period 1765-1809. This article will describe the computing system Maskelyne created to compute the necessary tables.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software Q Science |
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Journal or Publication Title: | IEEE ANNALS OF THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING | ||||
Publisher: | IEEE COMPUTER SOC | ||||
ISSN: | 1058-6180 | ||||
Official Date: | July 2003 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 25 | ||||
Number: | 3 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 14 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 48-61 | ||||
Publication Status: | Published |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
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