NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Navigation without Leap Seconds
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2008 Apr 17, 23:48 -0700
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2008 Apr 17, 23:48 -0700
frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.net wrote: > I'm sure > someone will invent a solution, especially if anyone can think of a > practical application of these super-clocks. It may be the case, though, > that the business of ever more accurate time measurement has hit a brick > wall with no means of comparing clocks at different locations which may last > for a few decades conceivably. That seems like the problem -- clocks are so accurate that the act of moving them will literally cause them to lose time -- Einstein's Theory of Relativity says the time passes more slowly for something in motion than something that's at rest. So how to take two clocks at different locations and compare them?? Have them send signals (ala listening to WWV or some other time station to set one's watch)? That takes time. Synchronize a portable clock to one of the ultra-precise clocks and take it to the other? The very act of moving the portable clock will throw it off. A mind-boggling challenge. Maybe we've just gotten too good.... Lu Abel --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---