Genius

The crucial theme of this book is the awe-inspiring power of genius to transform human life. John Harrison was raised in the British countryside and had no formal education whatsoever. As a child, he learned crafts from his father and read all he could. He built his first pendulum clock before he was twenty and did so without a job as a watchmaker's apprentice. No known clockmaker lived anywhere near his town of north Lincolnshire at the time. Harrison was truly incredible and built a variety of clocks around town that function to this day. He created a remarkable number of innovations in clock building in the process. He invented, for instance, a brass and steel pendulum that could aid in keeping time despite temperature changes. Harrison and his brother-in-law, James, were able to build a clock that lost never more than a second per month as a...