The Clocks Are Telling Lies: Science, Society, and the Construction of Time Johnston Scott Alan
The Clocks Are Telling Lies: Science, Society, and the Construction of Time Johnston Scott Alan Until the nineteenth century all time was local time. The invention of railways and telegraphs,…
Specifikacia The Clocks Are Telling Lies: Science, Society, and the Construction of Time Johnston Scott Alan
The Clocks Are Telling Lies: Science, Society, and the Construction of Time Johnston Scott Alan
Until the nineteenth century all time was local time. The invention of railways and telegraphs, however, created a newly interconnected world where suddenly the time differences between cities mattered. On foot or on horseback, it was impossible to travel fast enough to care that noon was a few minutes earlier or later from one town to the next.
Standard time, envisioned by railway engineers such as Sandford Fleming, clashed with universal time, promoted by astronomers. The Clocks Are Telling Lies is an exploration of why we tell time the way we do, demonstrating that organizing a new global time system was no simple task. When both sides met at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, in 1884 to debate the best way to organize time, disagreement abounded.
If scientific and engineering experts could not agree, how would the public? Following some of the key players in