Clock Lord

Clocks as we know, only display 12 hours at a time. The hour hand must go around the clock twice to measure 24 hours to make a complete day. How do we determine the difference between day time and night time? We have accepted the Latin words: Ante Meridiem - A.M. which means before noon and Post Meridiem - P.M. which means after noon.

In 1510, a man named Peter Henlein invented a spring-powered clock. The clock worked fine, but it was not very precise.  In 1577, Jost Burgi, invented a clock with a minute hand. This clock would prove to have problems keeping precise time as well.  Mankind was hungry for a time piece that would not have the problems of losing precious time with the ticks or the tocks, thus the development of the pendulum clock.

In 1656, Christian Huygens, developed a pendulum clock. The pendulum clock was indeed the first practical clock. This clock was developed because other clocks had problems with precise time mechanisms. The pendulum on the first pendulum clocks would swing about 50 degrees. The improved clocks swung about 10 to 15 degrees, quite a bit less than the original. The problem with pendulum clocks is, they stopped running after a while and had to be restarted. In 1840, the first pendulum clock with external batteries was developed. Further development of the pendulum clock included the batteries inside the clock.

During the early part of the last year, I was wondering what an atomic clock could do differently from the other clocks I own. I have always tried to keep up with the trends and was simply feeling a little behind the times when I ran across the information about atomic time. I didn’t know all the information these great clocks are capable of displaying. It is amazing that with one clock in your possession you will be able to check the time, temperature and in some cases moon phases and much more.

Atomic time is the most up-to-date time man has experienced to date. I know this, not because I have done a lot of extensive study about atomic time, but because I own an atomic clock. I purchased my clock shortly after I read about them. When I received it, I simply put in a battery, set the time zone and waw la! the clock actually worked. We are in day light savings time and it didn’t matter, the time still set to the perfect time. It doesn’t have the extensive pull on the alkaline batteries that other clocks do. As a matter of fact, since the clock works so well, it generally will not have to have another battery for at least two years.

Worry free from setting time whenever time changes to daylight savings and back again. The information is very extensive and very dynamic in these clocks. One of the most amazing things about these clocks is, most of them are not very expensive. They are highly recommended for use in the home or office and the larger clocks really do make great conversation pieces. There are rain gauges for those who want to keep up with the amount of rain fall. Check these out and be happy you did. Good luck with yours.

Timing is critical for synchronising signals between computers. In astronomy, fractional-second errors could sabotage long-baseline radio telescopes, which is a nifty way to fuse distant radio telescopes into one gargantuan receiver.   Global positioning satellites need accurate time. The Air Force operated GPS system can determine the three-dimensional position of a receiver anywhere on or off  Earth, to several feet in accuracy. The receiver performs this trick by timing the arrival of signals from four GPS satellites, then doing a quick calculation to triangulate its position.  It turns out that the innumerable communication, scientific and navigation systems rely on it. 

The United States Naval Observatory’s historian, Stephen Dick, points out that each nanosecond (a billionth of a second) of error translates into a GPS error of one foot.  A few nanoseconds of error, may not seem like much  to us, but if you are landing on an aircraft carrier, or targeting a missile it could mean your life. Thus each of the 24 GPS satellites contains four atomic clocks, which get an accurate time transfusion daily from the US Air Force.  The US Air Force, borrows the time from the United States Naval Observatory.

The wristwatch is a remarkable development that we have benefited from in every way. Developed by Patek Philippe in 1868, the wristwatch was intended as jewelry and was to be worn by women as a bracelet.  The design was sleek and very suitable for women only.  The man’s wristwatch was designed for practical uses.  It was designed in 1904 by Louis Cartier, a French watch maker, for his friend Alberto Santos-Dumont, an early aviator.  

During World War I, the wrist watch gained popularity.  It was no longer considered the watch of the aviator but this watch was used by common men.  The pocket watch, which was used mainly by the middle class, was no longer the watch of choice, the enlisted men of the military usually owned wristwatches.  Wristwatches were more convenient in battle, and easier to use when coordinating attacks became necessary, therefore the use of the wristwatch was much more common.  Another fact:  Wristwatches were found to be needed in the air for the military pilots because of their convenience over the pocket watch.  The wristwatch was just more practical.  Army contractors manufactured watches en masse, for both infantry and pilots.  The A-11 was a popular watch among American airmen, with its simple black face and clear white numbers, this World War II watch was designed for easy readability.   

We are quite use to having and owning a wristwatch and taking the workmanship behind it’s development for granted. Keep in mind the progress which has been made in the development of time keeping.  It has not always been so practical to have a timepiece on the wrist.  We have been introduced to a world of change and the discovery of digital technology has improved our timekeeping techniques tremendously.  

In 1972, Hamilton produced the first watch with a digital display. They had hinted that they had a new breakthrough as early as 1970 but had two years of teething problems before its 18-carat gold Pulsar hit the world at a price of $2,100. By pressing a button on the side, the time was displayed on a red numeric display, caused by a light emitting diode (LED) display. Hamilton had provided a brief glimpse into the future in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey when the company provided the futuristic digital clock that featured in the film.

The LED is created by passing an electric charge through inorganic materials. Seven electronic switches went into making each of the numerals on the display. The original red light was generated by using aluminium gallium arsenide, however Pulsar later produced a green LED using gallium nitride.

Many in the industry began to believe that the new quartz analogue watches would even be doomed to extinction so soon after their arrival that it wasn’t worth buying into the trend, something which was reflected in the writings of Douglas Adams and other contemporary writers at the end of the 1970s and start of the 1980s.

Before the watch companies could ‘do away with’ the analog watch though, they first had to bring down the price of the digital successor. Competition in the digital field increased and by 1975 there were over 80 varieties available. This competition helped to bring prices down but the product was still out of the range of the average consumer. Products such as digital alarm clocks trickled to the market over time.

An atomic clock is a type of clock that uses an atomic resonance frequency standard as its timekeeping element. They are the most accurate time and frequency standards known, and are used as primary standards for international time distribution services, and to control the frequency of television broadcasts and GPS satellite signals.

Atomic clocks do not use radioactivity, but rather the precise microwave signal that electrons in atoms emit when they change energy levels. Early atomic clocks were masers with attached equipment. Today’s best atomic frequency standards (or clocks) are based on absorption spectroscopy of cold atoms in atomic fountains.

The first atomic clock was built in 1949 at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard, was built by Louis Essen in 1955.  These revelations were the beginning of the most accurate time in history.  With all accounts in mind, this led to the internationally agreed definition of the second being based on atomic time. 

Since the beginning of development in the 1950s, atomic clocks have been made based on the hyperfine transitions. Scientific-instrument companies such as Hewlett-Packard have been making caesium-beam clocks and hydrogen masers for decades.  Continuous up-grades have been made to these scientific products and in August 2004 NIST scientist demonstrated a chip-scaled atomic clock.  In February 2008, a new clock based on strontium atoms trapped in laser grid was tested.  This new clock is more than twice as accurate as the best clock as we know of, to date. 

Did you know that radio controlled clocks and watches are now referred to as Atomic Clocks and Atomic Watches?  It is not difficult to imagine that Atomic time has come a long, long way.  Since the 1800’s Atomic time has existed.  It has evolved just as mankind has evolved.  We are now living in a world of high expectations and these clocks and watches are living up to the expectation which is -delivering us the exact time in any time zone.

 Time zones change throughout the world.  It is hard to keep up sometimes and so we try to manage just by counting on our fingers the number of hours we are away from another time zone.  Even in the United States, we are sometimes six to eight hours away from each other.  Now can you imagine, traveling from one state to the next and push a button letting your clock know the time zone and Poof! it sets itself? Amazing to think, isn’t it?  Come on, you need to try one for yourself.  They are not all bulky and heavy.  Some are actually sleek and beautiful.

     Since the beginning of time Making accurate clocks has always been the main goal.  Eventhough the sundial was a method of tracking time, accuracy was based on positioning of dial.  In the time when water clocks was the main source of keeping track of time their main drawback wasn’t the drip, drip, drip but the leakage of time.   Man has always searched for a better method of timekeeping.

    In the 17th century timekeeping got a big boost with the invention of the pendulun clock and again in 1928 with the invention of the quartz crystal drive mechanism.  The drive systems found on most of todays wristwatches and clocks are still the vibrating quartz crystal mechanism similar to the  invention of 1928.  Great detail has gone into invention of accurate time keeping, but we are still pondering our minds on how well time is kept.  We find that today, the atomic clocks are the best time keepers man has available.