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In Which Green Day Sees Through the Illusion: "Back in the USA"

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Blind Frog Belly White11/25/2017 1:27:36 pm PST

re: #200 dangerman

Two huh? So you never know the time….

Oh, you fixed em yourself. Then they’re probably spot on

Ha! Funny thing, is, though, that collecting and working on vintage mechanical watches gives you a somewhat different view of time and timekeeping. For example, time of day: “Noon” used to be when the sun was at its zenith, wherever you were, so “Noon” could be off by several seconds from one end of a city to the other. Can’t run a railroad like that, so the railroads gave us Standard Time, which some 19th Century skeptics said violated the Laws of God!!!

Watches themselves - railroaders needed the most accurate ones, because timetables to allow several trains to run on the same track, sometimes in opposite directions, at the same time, required those running the trains to follow their train orders to the minute. But a watch is not primarily a device which tells time. Its primarily a device which releases the power of a wound-up spring at as close to a fixed rate as possible, allowing you to put hands on it and use it to tell the time. So railroad watches ran with 30 seconds variation a week, meaning two guys on the same train could have over a minute’s difference in the time. These watches were generally not set to the second - no hacking system.

Viewed this way, you realize that knowing the exact time is not that important. I do try to make sure all my watches run as close to accurate as possible, but adjustment for position is beyond my abilities.