Emerging Technology in 1776 and the Technology Arc
Happy Fourth of July from The Binary Breakaway!
This 4th of July, we are resharing one of our most popular pieces from 2025. Enjoy!
Think for a moment about the crescendo of the Star-Spangled Banner. The line where singers proudly belt, and goosebumps rise from the necks of Americans.
And the rockets red glare.
The bombs bursting in air.
Game proof through the night.
That our flag was still there.
That stirring verse leads to the finale that many can’t hold their applause until the end of.
O’er the land of the free.
And the home of the brave.
As Americans take a moment this week to remember our independence, our collective sacrifice, and what unites us, we are going to take a moment to discuss technologies that were considered cutting edge in the time of the American Revolution. We hardly think about it today, but rockets and bombs bursting in air was once unimaginable technology. Two hundred and fifty years later, we are in a moment of incredible technology development. We are all working to understand technologies like AI, quantum computing, space, and IoT. But there was also a time when technologies we see as simple and primitive were at the cutting edge.
This is the technology arc. Unimaginable, difficult to understand, commonplace, forgotten.
On this Fourth of July week, we are going to look back at three technologies that were at the very bleeding edge of technological and scientific advancement. Maybe we can find some additional commonality with our revolutionary sisters and brothers and perhaps learn from how they managed technological change.
The Chronometer
Determining where you are in the world is nothing today. Most people have a pocket sized device that will tell them where they are anywhere in the world. That’s thanks to the Global Positioning System (GPS), a constellation of 24 satellites transmitting a one way signal to Earth that allows us to find the nearest coffee shop. Position, navigation, and timing (PNT) was a Cold War-era concept that solved a problem as old as humanity. Where are we in the world? This problem has always been compounded at sea where there are no mountains, rivers, or other features to reference. Space-based PNT solved this problem, but in 1714, the British Parliament saw it was such a problem that they offered a massive sum of money to anyone that could figure this out. It was called the Longitude Act.
Here’s the trouble.
Measuring latitude (north-south position) could be done by measuring the height of the sun at noon or the Pole Star at night. But measuring longitude (east-west position) required knowing the time at a fixed point and comparing that time to the time measured by the sun while at sea. Every hour difference between the time you mark by the sun and the time at the fixed point corresponds to 15 degrees of latitude. If you were sailing from England to the United States, it was easy to know how far north or south you were, but you had no accurate way to know how far west you were. This is a problem for ships transiting the Atlantic or Pacific, hence the large prize.
More trouble.
Clock at the time used pendulums and the movement of the sea made them useless. The chronometer needed to be able to perform at sea and not lose time throughout the voyage. The challenge was set. Anyone that could come up with a method for determining longitude within a half a degree of accuracy would be rewarded with 20,000 pounds.
Having a clock at sea today seems like nothing but building a mechanical clock that did not rely on a pendulum, could withstand temperature fluctuations and humidity, the motion of the ocean (pun intended). The world had nothing to fear because a self-taught clock maker named John Harrison was on the case.
Harrison created three versions of his chronometer before settling on the winner. His third version took him 19 years to complete, and it wasn’t even the one that won the prize. The H4, pictured below, lost only 5.1 seconds during an 81-day voyage to Jamaica, just around one mile of error.
The H4 weighed in at 3.2 pounds and resembled a large pocket watch. Harrison eventually got his prize after overcoming resistance from the old guard that believed that lunar measurement was the answer. For centuries after, longitude was solved by successors to Harrison’s H4 chronometer. The chronometer not only improved the safety of long voyages but it increased trade, opened economic opportunities, and allowed the French to come to the aid of the Continental Army at Yorktown, Virginia, just 20 years after the H4 was tested en route to Jamaica.
The Sextant
Many commonly used terms in the English language are actually nautical terms.
Loose cannon
Keep things on an even keel
As the crow flies
By and large
Despite the longitude problem, humans keep putting to sea…and discovering new problems. Next on the list of problems with navigating at sea: measuring angles at sea.
The angle of the sun relative to the horizon will tell you the time of day, as mentioned in the section on the chronometer. At night, the same can be done by measuring the North Star (in the northern hemisphere) and the Southern Cross (in the southern hemisphere).
If that shape looks familiar, it is featured on the flags for Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Papua New Guinea.
Before the Sextant, the instrument of choice was a Davis Quadrant. It was difficult to use in rolling seas and required the user to look directly into the sun, which wasn’t awesome. It was also difficult to see the North Star or the Southern Cross during sighting. If you wanted to use the old version, the octant, it only measured angles up to 90 degrees and lunar methods for measuring longitude required angles of up to 120 degrees. So, the options were to look directly into the sun, hope you were seeing the right star and not measure angles beyond 90 degrees. Not a lot of accuracy.
The key innovation was the double-reflecting principle. This principle allows the observer to view two objects simultaneously, one directly and one by reflection. This principle eliminates the need to align the instrument perfectly with two separate points. The evolution and refinement of the sextant (which means the sixth part) took place between 1757 and 1800. Key figures include naval officer John Campbell, mathematical instrument maker John Bird, and Jesse Ramsden, who perfected the dividing engine.
The combination of the sextant and the chronometer remained the chief methods of at-sea navigation for 200 years and were only overcome by the advent of radio and GPS.
Hot Air Balloon
Joseph-Michel Montgolfier loved smoke.
He actually thought smoke was capable of lifting things in the air. That turned out to be incorrect, but he was on to something. His invention created the first opportunity for people to look down on the world from the sky. Today, hot air balloons are a novelty, but there was a time when they were cutting edge technology.
Of course, smoke doesn’t lift things, warm air does. Warm air is less dense than cool air and that creates lift. In late 1782 and early 1783, Joseph and his brother Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier were ready to give this thing a shot. Having experimented with different fuels they executed a few uncontrolled flights, unmanned. One particular flight covered two kilometers before the balloon was destroyed upon landing. Not by the impact. By curious onlookers. Resistance to technological change is not new.
In 1783, King Louis XVI was ready to see a demonstration. The vision was for a flight with live beings to prove (or disprove) that the sky above the ground was safe for human flight. A sheep, duck, and a rooster were chosen as stand-ins for the first (animaled?) flight in a hot air balloon. The 8-minute flight covered 3.2 kilometers and resulted in the safe return of the entire crew to Earth (no animals were harmed in the making of this flight).
When it came time to send humans aloft for the first time, Louis XVI initially thought condemned criminals should be the test pilots. The idea was abandoned in favor of Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes. Tethered and untethered flights took place in October and November 1783. These initial balloons were limited in duration and dangerous due to their open flame. A competitor technology emerged almost immediately. Hydrogen balloons offered longer flight durations and greater altitudes because hydrogen is lighter than air.
Hot air balloons were the fulfillment of an ancient dream of flight. They proved flight was possible and served as an early catalyst for research into aviation.
I am sad to report that our very own Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier tragically became the first fatality in aviation history when his hybrid hot air/hydrogen balloon exploded during an attempted crossing of the English Channel.
Technology Arc
Humans imagine things they believe are impossible until they aren’t. Every innovation can be viewed as some crackpot project or some pipedream, but they are each just one innovation away. The problem of keeping time at sea, flying, or accurately measuring the angle of the sun vexed humans for centuries before the conditions were right for a breakthrough. Wrist or pocket watches are so common today that we hardly notice them. Their roots are in the longitude problem. Flight was a vision shared by humans across continents and across centuries. These problems were solved by the collective ingenuity of humans regardless of class.
What is clear is that big problems often capture the attention of governments and governments can serve a vital role in early R&D and creating momentum that brings the best minds to the problem.
What is also clear is that resistance to technology is not news. People destroyed an early hot air balloon in the French countryside because they didn’t know what it was. Had they been educated on what the technology was and how it was being developed (even if they had no idea how to build it themselves) they wouldn’t have destroyed it. What was true then is true now.
Happy Fourth of July to all those who celebrate. Happy Fourth of July to all those who value freedom and independence, wherever you are.
Great stuff, as always. A history of ballooning and how it changed the world would be super interesting. I'm assuming there were some technical limitations to building and maintaining balloons, or they would have been far more common. I'm imagining a speculative fiction story about an early Industrial Age society where hot air balloons are cheap and plentiful.