What should you think about before doing some work mainly or exclusively for financial benefits?

Some 300 hundred something years ago, in 1714, issued the Discovery of Longitude at Sea Act. While it sounds like a new law being introduced, the Act began a competition for scientists and engineers – the one to find a solution for how sailors at the sea could know precisely at which longitude they were would receive from £10 000 to £20 000, depending on accuracy.

Today the win would be from £1 700 000 to £3 300 000 (respectively), a good proof for a scientific problem to be highly important. The importance was real:

• Marine navigation was developing on a high pace and was strongly connected with trade and country’s position in international rankings.
• In October 1707 one of the greatest maritime disasters in British history took place – because of poor navigation, four warships of the Royal Navy fleet sank after having collided with rocks near the Isles of Scilly. What led to this were poor weather conditions and lack of knowledge of how to calculate exact position of a ship.
• Both scientists and sailors knew how to measure latitude of a ship’s position in the sea, but about a year before, Isaac Newton had claimed the problem of longitudes being unsolvable in terms of having any tools for precise calculations.

Below is the story of the winner who was never awarded the declared prize.