Clocks

Railway Chronometer


Exchange clock at Bristol showing two minute hands.

Wiki:

Railway time was the name given to the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November 1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different local times were synchronised and a single standard time applied. Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich which was already widely known as Greenwich Mean Time or (GMT).

The development of railway networks in India around 1860, and North America in the 1850s, as well as other countries in Europe, also prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the specific, geographical, industrial development and political governance appertaining.

The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold. Firstly, to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and secondly, to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses which were increasingly occurring as the number of train journeys increased.

The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain although it still took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone for the country.

Platform clock at King's Cross railway station, London.

The Speaking Clock:


A human speaking clock prior to the invention of automated equipment.

Wiki:

A speaking clock service is a recorded or simulated human voice service, usually accessed by telephone, that gives the correct time.

The format of the service is somewhat similar to those in radio time signal services. Every ten seconds or so, a voice announces "At the third stroke, it will be [for example] twelve forty-six and ten seconds...", with three beeps following. At the third beep, the time at that point is the time announced previously. Some countries have sponsored time announcements and include that in the message.

Typical mechanical analog stopwatch.

Tide clock.

Interesting to refer here to the "The Moon" thread in this section.

Wiki:

A tide clock is a specially-designed clock that keeps track of the Moon's apparent motion around the Earth. Along many coastlines the Moon contributes the major part (67 percent) of the combined lunar and solar tides.

Tide clocks keep an approximation of the average time between high lunar tides: 12 hours 25 minutes per revolution. As the precise average time between high lunar tides is actually half of a lunar day, or 12 hours 25 minutes 14 seconds, tide clocks gain about 15 minutes per month and must be reset periodically.

The bottom of the tide clock dial is marked "low tide" and the top of the tide clock dial is marked "high tide." The left side of the dial is marked "hours until high tide" and has a count-down of hours from 5 to 1. There is one hand on the clock face, and along the left side it points to the number of hours "until" the (lunar) high tide. The right hand side of the clock is marked "hours until low tide" and has a count-down of hours from 5 to 1. The number pointed to by the hand gives the time "until" the (lunar) low tide.

Some tide clocks count down the number of hours from high or low tide, as in "one hour past high or low tide". When the clock reaches the half way point ("half-tide"), it then counts the hours up to high tide or low tide, as in "one hour until high or low tide".

Tides have an inherent lead or lag, known as the lunitidal interval, that is different at every location, so tidal clocks are set for the time when the local lunar high tide occurs. This is often complicated because the lead or lag varies during the course of the lunar month, as the lunar and solar tides fall into and out of synchronization.

The lunar tide and solar tide are synchronized (ebb and flow at the same time) near the full moon and the new moon. The two tides are unsynchronized near the first and last quarter moon (or "half moon"). The best time to set the clock is at the new moon or the full moon, which is also when the clock can most reliably indicate the actual combined tide. Along shorelines where both components are important, a simple tide clock will always be least reliable near the quarter moon.

Tide range is the vertical distance between the highest high tide and lowest low tide. The size of the lunar tide compared to the solar tide (which comes once every 12 hours) is generally about 2 to 1, but the actual proportion along any particular shore depends on the location, orientation, and shape of the local bay or estuary. Along some shorelines, the solar tide is the only important tide, and ordinary 12 hour clocks suffice since the high and low tides come at nearly the same time every day. Because ordinary tidal clocks only track a part of the tidal effect, and because the relative size of the combined effects is different in different places, they are in general only partially accurate for tracking the tides. All navigators use tide tables either in a booklet or on a computer.

The Time Ball at Greenwich Observatory, London is shown in the top right of the picture.

Wiki:

A time ball is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore. Accurate timekeeping is one way of enabling mariners to determine their longitude at sea.

While we're on the subject...


The Shepherd gate clock at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London.

The bane of every employee's life, the Time Clock:


Time clock, made by National Time Recorder Co. Ltd. of Blackfriars, London at Wookey Hole Caves museum.

A "World Clock" shows the time for many places around the world:


Berlin Alexanderplatz - Weltzeituhr (world time clock)

Ship's Bell on USS Chancellorsville.

The International Date Line.

Wiki:

The International Date Line (IDL) is a generally north-south imaginary line on the surface of the Earth, passing through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that designates the place where each calendar day begins. It is roughly along 180° longitude, opposite the Prime Meridian, but it is drawn with diversions to pass around some territories and island groups.

Crossing the IDL travelling east results in a day or 24 hours being subtracted, so that the traveller repeats the date to the west of the line. Crossing west results in a day being added, that is, the date is the eastern side date plus one calendar day. The line is necessary in order to have a fixed, albeit arbitrary, boundary on the globe where the calendar date advances.

Samoa and Tokelau to cross international date line

AP foreign, Thursday December 29 2011

KENI LESA

Associated Press= APIA, Samoa (AP) — The tiny South Pacific nation of Samoa and its neighbor Tokelau will jump forward in time on Thursday, crossing westward over the international date line to align themselves with their other 21st century trading partners throughout the region.

At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 29, time in Samoa and Tokelau will leap forward to Dec. 31 — New Year's Eve. For Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in Tokelau, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, will simply cease to exist.

The time jump back to the future comes 119 years after some U.S. traders persuaded local Samoan authorities to align their islands' time with nearby U.S.-controlled American Samoa and the U.S. to assist their trading with California.

But the time zone has proved problematic in recent years, putting Samoa and Tokelau nearly a full day behind neighboring Australia and New Zealand, increasingly important trading partners.

In a bid to remedy that, the Samoan government passed a law in June that will move Samoa west of the international date line, which separates one calendar day from the next and runs roughly north-to-south through the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Under a government decree, all those scheduled to work on the nonexistent Friday will be given full pay for the missed day of labor.

The time shift will be marked by the ringing of church bells across Samoa's two main islands, and prayer services in all the main churches of the devoutly Christian nation.

The government will also host a service for invited guests and dignitaries.

Nearby Tokelau, a three-atoll United Nations dependency, said it will join its neighbor in the date line dance to maintain its alignment with Samoa, three sailing days away, where its administration is based.

Tokelau's parliament, the Tokelau General Fono, recently voted to go ahead with the change, although it still has to complete all formalities for the date line switch, a New Zealand foreign ministry official said in Wellington on Thursday.

"They're going ahead and doing it ... the same as Samoa," ministry spokeswoman Susan Budd said. The territory is administered by New Zealand on behalf of the U.N.

Initially strongly opposed by Samoa's opposition Tautua Samoa Party, the law to make the date line switch won its support after leader A'eau Peniamina told the nation's Parliament, "It's a change that benefits the people."

Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi earlier said it would strengthen trade and economic links with Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

Being a day behind the region has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and nearly dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand, Australia and increasingly prominent east Asian trade partners such as China.

"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," Tuila'epa said in a statement. "While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand, and when we're at church on Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."

"Today we do a lot more business with New Zealand and Australia, China and Pacific Rim countries such as Singapore," the prime minister said, adding that his latest idea will make commerce with the region "far, far easier."

Like many small Pacific island states, more of Samoa's people live permanently overseas than on its islands. Around 180,000 Samoans live in New Zealand, 15,000 in Australia and tens of thousands more in the U.S.

Other island groups with more of their citizens living offshore than on include Tuvalu, Niue, Tonga, Cook Islands and tiny Tokelau.

"It'll be useful that on Fridays (when) we call New Zealand, somebody will be on the other side of the office," Joe Suveinakama, general manager of Tokelau's public service, told Radio New Zealand International. "Whereas at the current time, they come to work on Monday, it's our Sunday. We come to work on Friday, it's their Saturday. So we actually lose a day in terms of operation."

For Samoa, it's the second big economic modernizing move by the governing Human Rights Protection Party in recent years, following its switch to driving on the left side of the country's roads in 2009, another move to align it with the two regional powers.

Tuila'epa said at the time the change made it easier for Samoans in Australia and New Zealand to send used cars home to their relatives. Opponents predicted major traffic problems, but they never happened.

So far, only Samoa's small Seventh Day Adventist Church has indicated a major problem for its congregation, which traditionally begins celebrations for the Sabbath on Friday night and continues through Saturday.

The Seventh Day Adventist parish in Samoa's Samatau village has decided it will continue to observe the Sabbath day on Saturdays despite changes forced on the church by the westward switch of the date line.

The original shift to the east side of the line was made in 1892, when Samoa celebrated July 4 twice, giving a nod to Independence Day in the U.S.

The date line drawn by mapmakers is not mandated by any international body. By tradition, it runs roughly through the 180-degree line of longitude, but it zigzags to accommodate the choices of Pacific nations on how to align their calendars.

Detail of the tomb of Pope Gregory XIII celebrating the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.

The Origins of English naming used by the Gregorian calendar:

January: Janus (Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings)

February: Februus (Etruscan god of death) Februarius (mensis) (Latin for "month of purification (rituals)" it is said to be a Sabine word, the last month of ancient pre-450 BC Roman calendar). It is related to fever.

March: Mars (Roman god of war)

April: "Modern scholars associate the name with an ancient root meaning 'other', i.e the second month of a year beginning in March."

May: Maia Maiestas (Roman goddess)

June: Juno (Roman goddess, wife of Jupiter)

July: Julius Caesar (Roman dictator) (month was formerly named Quintilis, the fifth month of the calendar of Romulus)

August: Augustus (first Roman emperor) (month was formerly named Sextilis, the sixth month of Romulus)

September: septem (Latin for seven, the seventh month of Romulus)

October: octo (Latin for eight, the eighth month of Romulus)

November: novem (Latin for nine, the ninth month of Romulus)

December: decem (Latin for ten, the tenth month of Romulus)


The Knuckle mnemonic.

...used in many countries: hold up one's two fists with the index knuckle of the left hand against the index knuckle of the right hand. Then, starting with January from the little knuckle of the left hand, count knuckle, space, knuckle, space through the months. A knuckle represents a month of 31 days, and a space represents a short month (a 28- or 29-day February or any 30-day month). The junction between the hands is not counted, so the two index knuckles represent July and August. This method also works by starting the sequence on the right hand's little knuckle, then continuing towards the left. It can also be done using just one hand: after counting the fourth knuckle as July, start again counting the first knuckle as August. A similar mnemonic can be found on a piano keyboard: starting on the key F for January, moving up the keyboard in semitones, the black notes give the short months, the white notes the long ones.

(Wikipedia)

When I was a child I was fascinated by my grandmother's German cuckoo clock.

In Samoa, today doesn't exist. The wise Samoans have jumped straight into the following day.

Hmm...useful device.

I wish that I could push a button
And talk in the past and not the present tense
(Brilliant mistake- Elvis Costello)

when i was a young child, i had an uncle who collected clocks....he had a whole room full of them
and i remember being able to hear them during the night, and how noisy they were.


i have a few clocks around here now, they are handy for people with ongoing memory loss.