ive just finnished a great book on the Harrison saga.
he was a remakable man and he was in an interesting
conflict with astronomers, harrison wanted to solve the problem
of ships getting lost due to not knowing the longitude position of the ship
and he favourered a very accurate time piece, and Astronomers, went for
a solution based on star/planet.moon positions, in various combinations.

anyway the watch won :-) (the prize)

anyway if your looking for a good read i would recommend it

title= Longitude
Author = Dava Sobel
publisher = forth estate london