Roman Mars

To deal with the problem of keeping a pendulum clock running on a rocking ship, Harrison made a modified pendulum with two connected bar balances that compensate for each other's motion.

A clock with these balances could keep time even when tilted around.

After Harrison finished H1 in 1735, he got in front of England's premier research institute, the Royal Society.

This was a big moment for Harrison.

A good review from the society might put his invention in front of the judges of the Longitude Act.

Harrison apparently got extremely seasick on the trip.

Like seasick enough that we are still talking about it 290 years later.

But H1 performed marvelously.

Harrison's timekeeper was able to correct the ship's longitude.

Harrison could have asked for his H1C clock to go on a trial to the West Indies, and it's likely the board would have given it to him.

He could have tried for the prize, but he didn't do that.

What he did do was solidify his place as the absolute worst venture capitalist in the history of the world.

And so, like the terrible entrepreneur he was, Harrison went back to the drawing board.

What followed were over 20 years of working and reworking and re-reworking designs for various Harrison sea clocks.

The watch was for his personal use, made by another clockmaker.

At the time, watches were extremely unreliable, even more so than regular clocks, which, as we've established, were very crappy.

Harrison looked down at his shiny new pocket watch and he realized that the key to a perfect sea clock was that he needed to think smaller.

His other clocks were massive.

And wouldn't it be so much better to have something small and practical that a captain out at sea could keep on him at all times and carry in his hand?

Except on Spirit Airlines, then it would probably cost 50 bucks.