Designer's Corner: Time, Space, and Motion: The Unanswered Challenges in Measuring Quality of Life

Abstract

By the beginning of the 18th century the measurement of longitude was one of the major challenges facing scientists. Errors in navigation resulted in wrecked ships with lives lost, failed explorations, and wasted time at sea. European powers were limited in their ability to wage war at sea, explore, discover, and claim new lands. The Ptolemaic views of the universe and earth, with modifications, reigned for 1,400 years, and navigators charted their voyages and explorations accordingly. Claudius Ptolemaues believed that the earth was the stationary centre of the universe, the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it. As an astronomer and mathematician he used epicycles to account for the motions of the planets, and he mapped the location of 1,020 stars. As a geographer he created a map of the world marked off in a grid of longitudes and latitudes (Chernow & Vallasi, 1993).