viii, 252 pp. "For more than a century European astronomers grappled with the mystery surrounding a suspected variation in latitude that affected their careful observations. Where the best minds in Europe had failed, an intellectual upstart from America eventually succeeded. In 1891, Seth Chandler, an actuary for an insurance company with no formal education in astronomy, built an inexpensive instrument that accurately detected the elusive variation of latitude. To compound the embarrassment of the Europeans--who discounted Americans as insignificant in the world of astronomical research--another American, Simon Newcomb, working at the U.S. Naval Observatory and using existing mathematical equations, validated Chandler's discovery. Much more than a mere academic exercise, this solution to the problem, dubbed the "Chandler Wobble," had profound significance to astronomers of the day and played an important role later in space exploration and the eventual development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) that so revolutionized modern technology. The authors, scientists themselves, manage to unravel the mystery without the use of technical jargon and bewildering formulae, and recount both the historical events and the dramatic human aspects of the story. Private correspondence, documents, and photographs provided by Chandler's granddaughter give readers a glimpse of life within the family and of Chandler's relationships with the scientific community. It is an uplifting tale filled with the ironies of how an amateur astronomer helped America find credibility in the world of serious scientific research, a world the U.S. would eventually lead all the way to the moon."
