@dansup Longitude. In the 17th Century, there was a prize for proof of a method for sailors and navigators to know how far east and west they'd travelled. Leading scientists of the day, including Isaac Newton, tried and failed.

The prize for succesful proof of a method to determine longitude was given to a clockmaker. He worked on the problem all his life and nearly died before proof was obtained. His son had to make the journey.

The master clockmaker managed to do what many educated people failed to do. He eventually devised a clock that would not be disrupted by the motion of the waves, as most pendulum clocks of the day would have suffered.

His clock, that won the prize, looked very much like a wind-up pocket watch. His innovation was to use a coil spring to power the watch instead of a pendulum.

Many people laughed at him for pursuing the prize that evaded the great minds of his day. He never went to college. A tradesman, he lacked the credentials distinguished people of his time had. Eveyone bet on them instead of him.

Yet his dilligent pursuit of knowledge of his craft, fueled by insatiable curiosity, drove him to achieve improvements in timekeeping until he discovered a method for exactly finding longitude that worked at sea.

Keep striving. Keep studying. Keep hacking.