1. 32 We need not be as reverent to Great Men of Science as those historians who indignantly record that Galileo was sentenced to recite penitential psalms once a week but — to a man — fail to tell us that Galileo passed this dreadful duty on to his daughter!
2. 39 Hülsmeyer's British patent, accepted 22 09 1904, is headed ‘Hertzian-wave Projecting and Receiving Apparatus Adapted to Indicate or Give Warning of the Presence of a Metallic Body, such as a Ship or a Train, in the Line of Projection of such Waves’. Hülsmeyer demonstrated his ‘ Telemobiloskop’ on 18 May 1904 at Cologne but despite his indefatigability and press coverage which extended as far as the New York Times, he could not interest naval authorities in Germany, Britain or anywhere else.
3. 7 Not everyone will agree. The King's intervention and its effectiveness are incontrovertible but the merits of Harrison's case are still controversial. James Newman certainly goes too farin describing Harrison as ‘ the victim of a series of unsurpassed chicaneries perpetrated by scientistsand politicians ’ (The World of Mathematicians, p. 779) but personally I am equally unconvinced by modern admirers of Nevil Maskelyne, fifth Astronomer Royal, father of the Nautical Almanac, arch-priest of lunar distances, arch-enemy of all mechanics and John Harrison in particular. For their point of veiw see Howse, D. (1985), Nevil Maskelyne, the Nautical Almanac and G.M.T. This Journal, 38, 159, and references thereunder.
4. 47 The name gyroscope means literally viewing the turning. It was given by Leon Foucault who demonstrated Sang's principle in 1852. There is no reason to believe Foucault knew of Sang'spaper any more than that Sang had read the key paper of Coriolis published in the Journal del’Ecole Polytechnique a year before his own lecture. There are times when things are in the air.
5. Edmond Halley – Nautical Scientist;Fanning;Navigation News,1986