Posted on 02/08/2015 4:22:05 PM PST by gorush
Time has always perplexed the human race. Weve tried to define it, track it, and measure it since the emergence of civilization. However, facts like these listed here show us how distorted our perception of time can be and how much we still need to learn about the fourth dimension.
(Excerpt) Read more at beyondblindfold.com ...
This can be controlled.....to advantage...IMO
The story of a time traveler who goes back to make some time, "1960 style," with Queen Cleopatra.
Thanks gorush for the ping, and Crazieman, /bingo!
When I flipped my parents car everything nearly stopped - I watched individual grains of dirt fly up and could follow the crack in the window as it formed up the middle
Only serious accident I’ve ever had, I recall thinking how soft cars are, like crushing a beer can, as I watched the hood crumple and I honestly thought I could see ripples going across the metal before it crumpled, like throwing a pebble into a pond. I also recall thinking that the sound effects people in movies and on television had the sound completely wrong.
Time slowed for me when I got caught in a micro burst. Every thing looked slow motion and I was able to steer the car around sailing trees and a flying garbage can. Very interesting.
#8 Was pretty mind blowing. The rest, not do much.
In order to accurately track time, even with benefit of a reference clock, you need to have 2 separate clocks that can be compared and agree on exactly what time it is. We have now officially exceeded the mount of accuracy a clock can have. From an engineering standpoint, it's pretty cool that we can split time up into chunks that small, in my not so humble opinion. However, from a practical standpoint, it's somewhat less than useful.
Of course, time measurement and definitions are completely arbitrary. This is true to a greater degree than most people even realize. Just about all smartphones now have GPS recievers built into them these days. One interesting thing about GPS time... It does not take leap seconds into account. Since there have been about 20 leap seconds (IIRC from the last time I looked that up) added to what are the standard reference time sources that are not reflected in GPS. In fact, there are several different "standards" for what time it actually is. I just took a look at leapsecond.com which has a pretty cool page to show the different time standards out there.
Here's what it showed me for the current time...
Here's what the different times are...
So, when someone asks you the question, "does anybody really know what time it is?"
You can answer: it depends upon what time you are talking about.
Computer time is even worse. Different operating systems have different epoch dates, and thus begin counting seconds from different starting places. There is a really interesting wikipedia article about this that goes into the who/what/whys of this in detail. I read through it a couple of times, and came out of it with the conclusion that what we really ought to do is standardize on the Posix epoch, then apply a lookup table to add/subtract leap seconds as required in order to allow us to actually agree on what number is going to be displayed. Since leap seconds aren't predictable as to when they will be added (we'll be getting one this year on June 30 I believe), the only accurate way to keep track is to have a lookup table that gets updated each time a leap second is added or subtracted.
Time is a funny thing, and how we keep track of it is fascinating IMO. One thing I'd really love to know is how we'll deal with timekeeping once we leave this planet and become interstellar travellers. Various sci-fi authors have had various ideas. None that I know of have looked at it in the detail I think it deserves.
bflr
We got there in time for the party!
Depending on what state you lived in women were allowed to vote national elections starting in 1870.
I neither wrote or posted it.
WOW! Thanks. I hadn’t seen that video before. Great camera work, also. That’s a good waker upper this morning.
LOL!
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