Ice Breaker Reception Tuesday 13 November The Royal Observatory Greenwich, London

	Forum Dinner Wednesday, 14 November Riverside Room, 3rd Floor, The IET, Savoy Place, London
	Sponsored by:

Ice Breaker Reception - Tuesday 13 November
16:45 - 20:00 The Royal Observatory Greenwich, London, UK

The Forum Ice Breaker Reception will take place in the world famous Royal Observatory Greenwich. Situated on the hill in Greenwich Royal Park, the historic Royal Observatory commands breathtaking views of the City of London and the River Thames. The Observatory is home to Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian of the world, and houses one of the world's finest collections of time-related scientific instruments, including the famous Harrison timekeepers. Guests will travel by boat down the River Thames taking in the sites of the London skyline, whilst dinning on board. Ice Breaker Reception is FREE for delegates.

Itinerary for the Ice Breaker Reception *

* Please note that times are approximate

Erasmus Boat Journey

Guests will travel in style aboard the Erasmus, the latest addition to the Thames Luxury Charters fleet, taking in the superb views and skyline that London has to offer. Once onboard, the guests will be served a hot fork buffet and be able purchase drinks from the bar. There will be plenty of time to network and take in the sites before arriving at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

The Royal Observatory Greenwich

The evening will start in the Time and Longitude Gallery, with a 15 to 20 minutes talk covering the history of the Royal Observatory, the Harrison Clocks, and the highlights to see in Flamsteed House and the Meridian building.

Guests will then be able to visit the Time Galleries in Flamsteed House and the Meridian Building in their own time.

The Time Galleries explore the following themes:

Time and Longitude
Time and Greenwich
Time and Society

Time and Longitude

This gallery explores two British solutions to the longitude problem.

One was based on detailed mapping measurements of the night sky, done here at Greenwich. The other was the development of an accurate, portable clock that worked on board ships – the Harrison marine timekeepers.

Location: Flamsteed House.

Time and Greenwich

This gallery looks at the historical need to develop increasingly accurate time keeping:

• the machines that measured the time
• the means by which the time was shared and distributed
• the people who used the time

Location: Flamsteed House.

Time and Society

This gallery examines the role of timekeeping in our everyday lives.

At home and at work, in our personal lives and across societies, we have made timekeepers to coordinate and make sense of our world – from sundials and wristwatches to calendars and clocks.

Location: Meridian building

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History of the Observatory

The Royal Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian line, is one of the most important historic scientific sites in the world. It was founded by Charles II in 1675 and is, by international decree, the official starting point for each new day, year and millennium (at the stroke of midnight GMT as measured from the Prime Meridian). The Royal Observatory is entering one of the most exciting periods in its history. The Time and Space Project is a £15 million redevelopment of the site which includes a new, state-of-the-art planetarium, new galleries and an education centre. The first milestone of the redevelopment was the opening of the Time galleries in February 2006. Fundraising was completed in November 2005 – over a year before the planetarium and Space galleries open.

The Observatory, part of the National Maritime Museum, is one of the most famous features of Maritime Greenwich – since 1997 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors to the Observatory can stand in both the eastern and western hemispheres simultaneously by placing their feet either side of the Prime Meridian - the centre of world time and space. The Observatory galleries unravel the extraordinary phenomena of time, space and astronomy, the Planetarium lets visitors explore the wonders of the heavens and Flamsteed House, Sir Christopher Wren’s original building, also has London's only public camera obscura.

Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his first Astronomer Royal in March 1675. The Observatory was built to improve navigation at sea and 'find the so-much desired longitude of places' - one's exact position east and west - while at sea and out of sight of land, by astronomical means. This was inseparable from the accurate measurement of time, for which the Observatory became generally famous in the 19th century.

A disaster at sea in 1707 killed over 2000 men and prompted greater calls for more reliable means of navigation. In 1714, Parliament established a panel of experts, the Board of Longitude, and offered a massive £20,000 reward (equivalent of about £2 million today) to anyone who could solve the problem of finding longitude at sea. It took nearly 60 years for the prize to be claimed. In the end it went not to a famous astronomer, scientist or mathematician, but to a little-known Yorkshire carpenter turned clockmaker, John Harrison.

Harrison's H4 was to change navigation forever. All four of his ground-breaking timekeepers are kept in full working order on display in the Harrison gallery - the highlight of a visit to the Observatory. Find out more about John Harrison and his 50-year quest to solve the longitude problem in our online feature.

The Royal Observatory is also the source of the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude 0° 0' 0''. Every place on the Earth is measured in terms of its distance east or west from this line. The line itself divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the Earth - just as the Equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres.
The Prime Meridian is defined by the position of the large 'Transit Circle' telescope in the Observatory's Meridian Building. This was built by Sir George Biddell Airy, the 7th Astronomer Royal, in 1850. The cross-hairs in the eyepiece of the Transit Circle precisely define Longitude 0º for the world. Read more about Airy and the Transit Circle.

Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the co-ordinate base for the calculation of Greenwich Mean Time. Before this, almost every town in the world kept its own local time. There were no national or international conventions to set how time should be measured, or when the day would begin and end, or what the length of an hour might be. However, with the vast expansion of the railway and communications networks during the 1850s and 1860s, the worldwide need for an international time standard became imperative.

The Greenwich Meridian was chosen to be the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884. Forty-one delegates from 25 nations met in Washington DC for the International Meridian Conference. By the end of the conference, Greenwich had won the prize of Longitude 0º by a vote of 22 in favour to 1 against (San Domingo), with two abstentions (France and Brazil). There were two main reasons for the victory:

• the USA had already chosen Greenwich as the basis for its own national time-zone system.
• at the time, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian.

The decision, essentially, was based on the argument that by naming Greenwich as Longitude 0º, it would inconvenience the least number of people. Therefore, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich became the centre of world time, and the starting point of each new day, year and millennium.

In 1960, shortly after the transfer of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) to Herstmonceux (and later Cambridge), Flamsteed House was transferred to the National Maritime Museum's care and over the next seven years the remaining buildings on the site were also transferred and restored for Museum use. Here the collections of scientific, especially astronomical, instruments have continued to grow. Following the closure of the RGO at Cambridge in October 1998, the site is now again known as the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

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Forum Dinner – Wednesday, 14 November
19.00 – 22.00 hrs: Riverside Room, 3rd Floor, The IET, Savoy Place, London

Sponsored by:

The ITSF forum dinner will be held in the IET’s Riverside Room on the third floor, on Wednesday, 14th November at 19.00 hrs. The dinner has been kindly sponsored by Calnex Solutions Ltd

The Institution's Riverside Room, has spectacular views over the River Thames, taking in some of London’s most famous sites including: the London Eye, Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral.

There will be pre-dinner drinks followed by a seated 3 course meal. The cost of the dinner is included in the registration fee, so delegates will automatically receive an invitation to the dinner together with a conference pass. Additional guest tickets can be purchased for £59.50 inc VAT.