MEASURING TIME

MEASURING TIME

All Timekeeping devices depend on counting a regularly-repeated phenomenon. The earliest timekeeping devices were based on daily, monthly, or yearly cycles of the sun or moon. Most modern clocks are based on repeated mechanical or electronic oscillations (vibrations).

The more frequent the vibrations, the greater the potential accuracy of the clock. The crystal in a quartz watch typically vibrates at 32,768 hertz (32768 times a second), so it keeps better time than a pendulam clock, whose pendulam typically swings twice a second.

The most accurate time keeping devices are atomic fountains, which are based on oscillations of caesium atoms. Global communication, technologies, such as computer networks and broadcasting, rely on the world using one accurate time standard. This is called UCT (Universal Coordinated Time) and is based on the average time signal received from over 200 atomic clocks worldwide.

The more we rely on high technology for precise timekeeping, the more vulnerable we become to problems with that technology, for example the bug that threatens to strike at the beginning of the new millennium.