Longitude
E639466
"Longitude" is a popular historical nonfiction book by Dava Sobel that recounts the quest to determine a ship’s east–west position at sea, focusing on John Harrison’s invention of the marine chronometer.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Longitude canonical | 7 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7050543 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Longitude Context triple: [Dava Sobel, notableWork, Longitude]
-
A.
Latitude
Latitude is Dell’s line of business-oriented laptop computers designed for corporate, enterprise, and professional use.
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B.
Humboldt meridian
The Humboldt meridian is a principal survey meridian used as a reference line for land surveying and mapping in parts of northern California.
-
C.
San Bernardino meridian
The San Bernardino meridian is a principal survey meridian used as a reference line for land surveying and mapping in Southern California and parts of Nevada.
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D.
Great Arc of the Meridian
The Great Arc of the Meridian was a monumental 19th-century geodetic survey line across the Indian subcontinent that played a key role in measuring the Earth’s shape and refining global maps.
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E.
Prime Meridian
The Prime Meridian is the internationally recognized zero-degree line of longitude from which all other longitudes and global time zones are measured.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Longitude Target entity description: "Longitude" is a popular historical nonfiction book by Dava Sobel that recounts the quest to determine a ship’s east–west position at sea, focusing on John Harrison’s invention of the marine chronometer.
-
A.
Latitude
Latitude is Dell’s line of business-oriented laptop computers designed for corporate, enterprise, and professional use.
-
B.
Humboldt meridian
The Humboldt meridian is a principal survey meridian used as a reference line for land surveying and mapping in parts of northern California.
-
C.
San Bernardino meridian
The San Bernardino meridian is a principal survey meridian used as a reference line for land surveying and mapping in Southern California and parts of Nevada.
-
D.
Great Arc of the Meridian
The Great Arc of the Meridian was a monumental 19th-century geodetic survey line across the Indian subcontinent that played a key role in measuring the Earth’s shape and refining global maps.
-
E.
Prime Meridian
The Prime Meridian is the internationally recognized zero-degree line of longitude from which all other longitudes and global time zones are measured.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
historical nonfiction book ⓘ |
| author | Dava Sobel ⓘ |
| awarded | British Book of the Year (shortlist) ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| coversEvent |
Board of Longitude prize competition
ⓘ
linked to:
Board of Longitude
development of Harrison marine timekeepers H1–H4 ⓘ |
| explains |
problem of determining east–west position at sea
ⓘ
relationship between timekeeping and longitude ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
development of accurate timekeeping for navigation
ⓘ
quest to determine longitude at sea ⓘ |
| genre |
history
ⓘ
maritime history ⓘ popular science ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation | Longitude (2000 television film) ⓘ |
| hasEdition | illustrated edition of Longitude ⓘ |
| hasFormat |
audiobook
ⓘ
book ⓘ illustrated edition ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780802715296 ⓘ |
| hasSubjectArea |
history of science
ⓘ
horology ⓘ navigation ⓘ |
| hasTitle | Longitude ⓘ |
| influenced | public awareness of the history of navigation ⓘ |
| intendedAudience | general readership ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
John Harrison
ⓘ
history of longitude ⓘ marine chronometer ⓘ |
| narrativeStyle | narrative nonfiction ⓘ |
| notableFor |
popularizing the history of the longitude problem
ⓘ
reviving interest in John Harrison ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| originalPublicationYear | 1995 ⓘ |
| placeOfPublication | New York City ⓘ |
| portrays |
Board of Longitude
ⓘ
John Harrison ⓘ Nevil Maskelyne ⓘ
linked to:
Royal Astronomer Nevil Maskelyne
|
| publicationYear | 1995 ⓘ |
| publisher | Walker & Company ⓘ |
| setting |
18th century
ⓘ
Age of Sail ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
television film Longitude (2000)
ⓘ
linked to:
BBC television films
|
| subtitle | The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time ⓘ |
| timePeriodDescribed | 18th century maritime navigation ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Longitude Description of subject: "Longitude" is a popular historical nonfiction book by Dava Sobel that recounts the quest to determine a ship’s east–west position at sea, focusing on John Harrison’s invention of the marine chronometer.
Referenced by (7)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.