UNIVERSAL TIME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19448, 6 November 1925, Page 8

UNIVERSAL TIME

AN INGENIOUS INVENTION ONE STANDARD FOR THE WORLD LONDON, Sept. 22. ; Mr Roland Berril, who left by the Oronsay for New Zealand a day or two I ago, takes with him a number of | watches and clocks which will be shown at the Dunedin Exhibition. His invention is what might be called a •‘world standard true local and 24-hour i timepiece.” With the present-day system of naming time it is impossible to deal with persons living outside one’s own zone i without difficult calculations which will i differ with every zone. Bcrrill’s world : time is universal. If it is 244 o’clock, for instance, in Paris it is 244 o’clock <in Sydney or Auckland. The 24 hours i of the day are divided into 3GO units, each unit being four minutes of present day time. A large hand shows the tens, a number appears at a little window and shows the unit, and a small hand indicates the fractions of four minutes, i This ingenious invention may not ' come into general' use. though it has as : good a claim as the decimal system in ; weights and measures, but for certain professions it is obviously invaluable. In broadcasting over great areas such a statement as “concert at 8 p.m.” may (be quite meaningless. Or when the , operator at a cable station in midPacific puts “Passed here at 11 a.m. ” <»n messages coming through he knows ; that such a statement is meaningless | without calculations. The same applies to vessels signalling or to aeroplanes. Mr Berrill is perhaps a little in ad- , vance of the world’s requirements, but the invention is sure to come into general use in certain technical professions where time is an important item. The ! inventor is a young barrister who has ; not practised his profession. He was in :he Flying Corps during the war and flew for the 2nd Australian Army Corps : at the Battle of Messi nos.