| In the modern world we take for granted the | | | | than any other advancement, was responsible for |
| availability of innumerable sources providing accurate | | | | the rapid introduction and implementation of a |
| measurements of time. Telling current time is so | | | | universally recognized schedule of times. This |
| readily available that we have lost sight of the | | | | schedule required accurate devices to register local |
| profound importance of knowing time, to the hour | | | | time. |
| and minute. For most of human history accurately | | | | Railroads needed to load and offload passengers and |
| measuring time was irrelevant. There was no need | | | | freight at pre-appointed times and places along their |
| for watches; clocks, clock radios or digital time reads | | | | lengthy route systems. Travelers and shippers |
| on car dashboards. | | | | needed to accurately know when trains would arrive |
| Until the flowering of the industrial age in the second | | | | and depart in order to be ready to board passenger |
| half of the 19th century most people worked in small | | | | cars and load shipping cars with goods. Before the |
| plot agriculture. All over the world people scratched | | | | growth of railroads there was little necessity for the |
| out a living farming and herding small plots and flocks. | | | | measurement of time in minutes. It was enough for |
| Very few people ventured more than several miles | | | | almost any human to simply know that it was 3:00 |
| from their place of birth in their whole lifetimes. Time | | | | PM, plus or minus any number of minutes. However, |
| was told by the change of seasons and the planting | | | | if the train was scheduled to arrive at 3:10 PM in |
| and harvest cycles. Nothing else was needed to | | | | Leeds, England, or Dodge City, Kansas, and depart at |
| provide measurements of time. | | | | 3:35 PM, the public needed to be able to connect |
| The ancients used sundials in numerous forms for | | | | within that precise window of time if they were to |
| crude time measurement. Shade, rain, and cloudy | | | | be able to utilize the trains many services. This |
| days made the sundial unreliable. The Egyptians | | | | required the mass production of clocks and personal |
| invented an advanced Water Clock. The device used | | | | timepieces. |
| a drip system that raised a float tied to a pointer. | | | | Today we are fully wired by time. Our lives are an |
| This system was relatively accurate in measuring | | | | endless series of activities attuned to specific times. |
| hours, but not minutes. | | | | Our Saturday tennis match, doctor appointments, |
| The clock as we know it first appeared in Europe in | | | | restaurant reservations, conference calls and NFL |
| the 14th century. The clock was made operable by | | | | games are occurrences that we participate in at |
| the creation of the "verge escapement". This gear | | | | specific times. We need to know time to the minute |
| engaged a set of teeth that powered an hour hand. | | | | and our modern environment has time accurately on |
| There was no measurement of seconds or minutes. | | | | display virtually every where we look. We take this |
| The hour hand was accurate within one to two hours | | | | simplest of conveniences for granted. |
| each day. The inventor of this initial timepiece is | | | | The settling of the International Time Line at |
| unknown. | | | | Greenwich, England (Greenwich Mean Time) enables |
| Something more precise was essential if technology | | | | to world to be divided into time zones. We know |
| was to advance. In 1657 a Dutch astronomer, | | | | that different parts of the world are in one of 24 |
| Christiaan Huygens was credited with inventing the | | | | separate time zones and all commercial activity finds |
| first accurate time keeping device that included the | | | | rhythm from this practical division of geography into |
| credible measurement of time by the minute. This | | | | these agreed time zones. The rubber plantation |
| advance was crucial in many fields. Navigators | | | | foreman in Nigeria knows exactly when the product |
| required accurate time measurement to compute | | | | manager will be available in Akron, Ohio because of |
| longitude. All scientific experimentation requires | | | | this internationally employed system of measuring |
| accurate measurement of time. | | | | time. The modern world could not efficiently operate |
| For the common man, working on a farm, or as a | | | | if the ancients had not begun the quest for |
| village cobbler, or baker, accurate measurement of | | | | accurately measuring the hours of each day. |
| time was still of little importance. The railroad, more | | | | |