John Hadley John Hadley, a mathematician aged 49, presents a new instrument of navigation, the octant, also known as the reflecting...

Isaac Newton The Longitude Act is passed by   the Parliament ‘ for providing a Publick Reward for such Person or Persons as shall...

Edmund Halley Edmund Halley, an astronomer and polymath aged 30, presents at the Royal Society a map of the Trade Winds also known as Easterlies. As for the Atlantic ocean, they have been known by the Portuguese since the beginning of the exploration, that is in the first half of the 15th century. As for the Pacific ocean, this is Andrés de Urdaneta (†1568) who brought them to light in 1565 and plotted a map for the Manila galleon route between the Philippines and Acapulco.

The United Provinces and France have been at war for five years. They have been struggling for ruling the seas while the Royal Navy has fallen third. A key character, Samuel Pepys, 44 years old, convinces his peers to initiate an unexpected recovery through an extraordinary investment. Samuel Pepys A member of the Royal Society and positioned as the mainstay at the Admiralty, he became Secretary of Admiralty in 1673 and, the same year, a Member of Parliament. His influence

Jean Picard, a priest, an astronomer and a geodesist, aged 49, has measured an arc of meridian between Paris and Amiens, hence the radius and the circumference of the earth by extrapolation. He is a pupil of Astronomer Pierre Gassendi (†1655), who was also a priest and a philosopher, and as of 1623 a promoter of heliocentricism, ten years before the sentence against Galileo Galilei (†1642). Picard is also one of the 21 first members of the Académie Royale des Sciences  founde