SPLITTING THE SECONDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21882, 18 August 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

SPLITTING THE SECONDS

ACCURATE TIME KEEPING Of the many strange devices to he found in scientific laboratories perhaps none is stranger than the certain nnimposing crystal ring in the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. From this glistening ring go impulses which regulate great broadcasting stations; impulses which measure the flow of time; impulses which clock the planets in their unending gyrations. The crystal ring plays an important role in the forward march of science, states the Scientific American. It helps the scientists at the laboratories in

their constant quest for greater knowledge; it permits them to peer further into the unknown and to solve tho mysteries and secrets of nature. It divides the second, man's smallest named division of time, into 100,000 parts, and therefore is capable of

measuring periods of a few minutes with an accuracy of one part in 5,000,000!

But why divide the second into such | small parts? Wherein lies the need? The answer is that all of science and much of everyday life depends upon a few definite standards. To the scientist, the fundamental units are those of length, the centimetre; weight, the gram; and time, tho second. The unit of length and the unit of weight are definite, man-made blocks of metal. The unit of time, the second, is a much less tangible thing; and the measurement of time takes one back to the very beginning of time itself. " To trace the evolution of modern time measurement," says the writer, " we must go back to the mysticism, tho superstition and sun-worship of the Chaldeans. These ancient people evolved tho seven days of the week from the sun and moon and tho five planets: Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn. They worshipped the planets as gods, and the sun was their greatest god. The moon, which ruled at night in placo of the sun, was tho god next in esteem. One day each week was set aside for special worship of the sun, and this day became Sun Day, or Sunday. Likewise the second day of their week became Moon Day, or Monday.

" The time required by tho sun to traverse its path through the belt of the ecliptic was divided into the 12 constellations of the Zodiac to form the 12 months of the year. The day was divided into 12 hours, and for a smaller division of the hour they turned to their mathematical system, in which the figure 60, called Sos, was regarded as a mystic number derived from the five planets and 12 constellations. Tho hour was divided, by this mystic number 60, to obtain the minute, a.nd tho minute was, in turn, divided into 60 parts to obtain the second. " The first record of a time machine was that called tho clepsydra. The word is of Greek origin, and signifies " water-thief." The machine was in reality a water clock which measured time *by the ascent or descent of a float on the water in a vessel into which or out of which water slowly dripped. Tho first mention of a sundial is found in the Bible (Isaiah 38:8) in the period of 700 B.C. However, Anaximander, a Greek astronomer who lived from 610 to 547 8.C., is credited with the invention of the sundial. It is known that the early Egyptians used obelisks as sundials by measuring the time of day according to the length and direction of the shadow cast by the obelisk. " Toothed wheels were known about 300 8.C., but it was not until 145 B.C. that they were first applied to clepsydras to cause a pointer to revolve over a dial plate on which hours were marked. This machine was made by Ctesibius, in Alexandria. Pope Sylvester made a clock at Magdeburg about the year 996. In 1583 Galileo discovered the principle of the pendulum, and in 1657 Huygens, who was born at the Hague, presented to the Government of his native land the first pendulum clock ever made. From then on tho art of clock making evolved rapidly until today our modern ship chronometers are accurate to about one second each day, or perhaps 300 seconds a year."