Fun time to be alive - time keeping
I had messed around in boats a lot when I was younger so the importance of timekeeping for navigation is a major thing for me.
30 years ago, timekeeping jumped to a whole new level when various clocks based on Cesium and Rubidium were developed. These devices are now showing up on eBay for cheap.
Granted, the "Physics Packages" in these clocks have a lifespan of 20-30 years of operation but many of them were not operated 24/7 so for not that much money, you have a fun bit of history as well as a very accurate clock and when it dies in five or ten years, the
next generation of technology will be available for another hundred bucks or so on eBay.
There is an email list dedicated to accurate timekeeping and there has been a running discussion as to whether the Mayan Long Count calender took into account the Leap Seconds used to compensate for the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
So the end of the world is when????
Posted by DaveH at December 19, 2012 8:50 PM