Trivia Question: How do our clocks, watches, computers have the correct time?

18. October 2009 by admin.

So how do our clocks have the right time? I mean assuming you don’t have a newer clock that (somehow?) automatically sets itself after having lost power or as soon as you plug it in. (Grant it - there are clocks that have battery back up and can keep the time through a short power outage. But what happens when the battery dies? What happens when the clock is new? What happens after an extended outage such as a storm?)

Many people, when a home or office clock has lost the time due to having lost power or whatever, might set it from a wrist watch (not necessarily very accurate) - but chances are you might tune to a TV channel on Cable or Satellite (or even Over-the-air TV) and get the time from there to set you clock.

But where does the TV channel get their time from? Ahhhhhh. Just like some people might wonder what their family history is (Geneology) - have you ever wondered where THE TIME OF DAY comes from?

WE HAVE TO AGREE on the date and time. I mean, if we have to meet at a certain time, on a certain date, there have to be standards on what time it is (possible article Time Zones?) and what date it is. Something has to keep track of that for us. And your average clock, wristwatch, or computer can’t be relied on - especially past losing power. So where do we go after we’ve lost power to set the time on our devices again?

Some more technically savvy might say GPS - as in Global Positioning System - as some GPS receivers will give the time from the GPS Satellite Signals. But GPS is only a very recent development. It’s not long ago that we didn’t have GPS.

But where do the GPS Satellites get their time from?

Does anybody really know what time it is?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS255US256&q=Do+we+really+know+what+time+it+is%3f%2bsong

There is a song like that, right?

I just posted a blog article below, which has information about Time Standards.

To my knowledge there are two time references in the U.S. And others in other parts of the world. GMT or Greenwhich Mean Time, nowadays known as UTC or Universal Time Coordinated (or the French acronym for that?) We use:

U.S. Navy -and-

NIST

See my other article for more about that.

As a final note there are no doubt some Geo (Earth) and Astro (Astronomical) based reasons behind time and date settings as well. I’m not going there yet. But the Myans and others - way back in time - seemed to know a lot about this as well.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

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