WEBVTT - What is time? And why do we rely on Greenwich for it? 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:04.880 I guess what mango was that. Well, I remember you 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:07.840 met my grandfather before he passed away a few years back, 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.720 but I can't remember. Did I ever tell you how 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.680 much he loved clocks and watches. I don't think I 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.400 knew that. I mean I knew they used to go antiquing. Yeah, 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:17.480 so when I was a kid, he ran this small 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.159 flooring business. This was in Huntsville, Alabama, and you know, 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.120 at the front of his shop there he also had 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.200 this collection of antiques and it was kind of like 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.280 its own little antique shop, and he'd sell and trade 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.320 pieces that he'd find. It shows around the Southeast, and 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:34.959 it was one of my favorite places to be when 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.200 I visited him. I'd either be hiding in the back 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.440 and the rolls of carpet, pretending I was doing something 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.840 really important at this antique roll top desk he kept 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.519 in there. But you know, it always seemed like my 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.960 granddad's favorite things to collect and trade were these old 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.120 clocks and watches. So if you were in the shop 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.520 or at his home and you weren't used to it, 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.000 at the ticking and the chiming of all those clocks 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.640 could just make people crazy. But I always loved it, 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:03.560 but it was kind of strange because he didn't seem 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.399 to be looking for the fanciest or the most expensive 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.920 watches he could find. He just liked to find ones 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.119 that were interesting to him. He'd sometimes see him wearing 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.440 a watch that you hadn't seen before, and if you 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.240 asked him where he'd gotten it, he'd just say, well, 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:18.800 your cousin Sam and I liked each other's watches, so 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:20.480 we just trade it. And it was just kind of 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.240 the way he was. He just liked having him and 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.640 have other people get to experience them as well. But 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.720 you know, my grandfather is obviously not alone in his 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.600 fascination with time pieces and time in general, and the 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.559 way we think about and talk about time has changed 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.199 so much over the years, from the birth of time 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.880 zones to thinking about time travel, to the disputes around 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.679 what official time actually is. They're just so much we 0:01:45.680 --> 0:02:00.240 want to get to today, So let's dive in. Yea, 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.639 Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.000 Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.520 friend Manges Ticketer and on the other side of the 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:21.080 soundproof glass showing off his brand new Omega speed Master watch. 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.400 That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now, I don't 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.919 know if you know this, Mango, but right there is 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.400 the infamous Moonwatch. Oh my god, Tristess told me like 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.200 twenty times already this morning. That's a moon watch. Such 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.560 a show off. I know the speed Master has been 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.840 like the go to watch for NASA for like, you know, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.160 ever since, even before the moon landings took place. But 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.920 I do think it's really nerdy and really cool that 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.160 he has one. Well I would probably be sporting it 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.560 too if I had one. But if you're listening, Omega, 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.680 you can always throw us a couple of moon Watches 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.000 our way. So we're we're here, you know how to 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.639 find us, And a little bit later we'll talk about 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.960 exactly why NASA is so big on the speed Man 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.239 Estra brand, as well as the stories behind a few 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.480 other clocks and watches. But you know, before we get 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.400 to the specific timekeepers, I thought we should kick things 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.560 off by talking a little bit about time itself. I mean, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.840 it's really the thing that drives and defines our lives 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:16.919 in so many ways, And you think about how off 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.160 and we talk about it, we spend it we save it, 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.720 we waste it, we treasure it. But what even is time? 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.440 I mean, is it an intrinsic part of the universe 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.280 or just something we made up? So I want to 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:29.880 turn this over to you, man, go and see if 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.200 you can just go ahead and tell us, like, what 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.200 is time? Over to you? Yeah, I'm sure in like 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.720 two minutes I'll be able to get through what time is. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.400 It could be awesome. I mean, quantum physicists aren't even 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.000 convinced that time exists, so I think it would take 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.560 a little more explaining than we can give it. But uh, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.400 maybe we should just say it's not a thing. Yeah, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.520 that's that. That might be the answer. End of episode. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.240 But I mean, I think what they're arguing is more 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.840 that time doesn't exist in the way that we usually 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.400 think about it, you know, as this kind of ever 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.480 moving line that only goes in one direct action, and 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.720 physicists would say time is a little bit more like space. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.800 All of it just sort of exists at once and 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.560 doesn't actually unfold in this chain of moments, which of 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.880 course is the way we as humans perceive it. Yeah, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.360 I don't know, maybe a better answer for people it's 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.719 just like time is the stuff clocks run on, and 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.159 I feel like that feels like a suitable answer. I 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.200 feel like I can get behind that for this episode. 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.040 I mean, I think we're more interested in the way 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.839 that humans perceive and talk about time, So we'll probably 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:33.120 leave relativity and causality for another episode because it's all 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.920 fascinating stuff. But I like your idea of how to 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.400 frame this for today. So one thing I think it's fascinating, 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.440 and it's something you mentioned, is how we experience time 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.000 as a chain of moments. But have you ever stopped 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.920 to think about how long exactly a moment is? You mean, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.200 like numerically or what I mean. I feel like a 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.159 moment is just like that, just like a snap. That's it. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.920 That's how long a moment is, isn't it. Yeah. I mean, 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.039 as scientific as that system you've given us sounds like 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:00.400 it sures out we used to be a lot more 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.360 precise about moments than we are today. In fact, this 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.839 is actually something I hadn't heard before this week. But 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.880 apparently there was once a widely accepted definition for exactly 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.920 how long a moment lasts. And this was true from 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.679 the Middle Ages all the way up through the nineteenth century. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.839 So this definition was that a moment was precisely one 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.520 hour or about nine seconds one forty Are you joking 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.520 that that seems way too long? I'm telling you, mango, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.960 a moment. It's just that a moment, just a snap 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.159 of what a moment is. So I actually agree with you. 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.599 I I lean more in that direction. But a moment 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.920 in history is actually like an era, or it could 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.640 be an entire decade of social upheaval, and it can 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.840 really be as long or short as you wanted to be. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.839 And I think that kind of highlights the disparity between 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.800 our approach to keeping track of time and the way 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.440 we actually think about it. I mean, we we use 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.000 like complex things like the movements of stars and the 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.080 radiation cycles of atoms to establish this sense of accurate timekeeping, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.600 and then all convinces ourselves that there is such a 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.080 thing as correct time. But you know, for all the 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.800 science and the precision behind those systems, we all still 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.800 perceive and speak about time in an incredibly subjective way. Yeah, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.520 that's a good point, And I do think in a 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.440 really meaningful sense, time is something of a you know, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.760 more of a social construct, and you forget about moments 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.320 and minutes because we also measure time with concepts derived 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.160 from our socialization. I mean, think about things like work 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.240 days and weekends and being on time or fashionably late. 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.560 I mean, all of these things are ways of marking 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.760 time that we're definitely born from humans living and working together. 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.159 And what's interesting is that because every society is different, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.400 there actually has a lot of variants out there when 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.560 it comes to perceiving and talking about time. In fact, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.000 listen to this breakdown of how different cultures view time. 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.960 There was this article from uh Science Daily, and so 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.680 here's what they had to say about it. Different languages 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.480 also embodied different worldviews, different ways of organizing the world 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.080 around us, and time is a case in point. For example, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.200 Swedish and English speakers prefer to mark the duration of 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.520 events by referring to physical distances for example a short break, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.840 a long wedding, The passage of time is perceived as 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.760 distance traveled. But Greek and Spanish speakers tend to mark 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.640 time by referring to physical quantities for example a small 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.040 break or a big wedding. The passage of time is 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.679 perceived as growing volume. You know, I always love hearing 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.040 how other cultures handled their spatial metaphors. And you know, 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.160 for instance, I was reading in Scientific American about this 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.240 secluded group of tribes people in Papua New Guinea and 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.080 they're called the yup No, and they live in these 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.080 remote villages way up in the mountains, and they don't 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.720 have any roads, electricity, and of course they interact very 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.160 sparingly with the outside world. But a group of researchers 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.640 visited the tribe a few years back, and they found 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.120 that these tribes people all made the same spontaneous gestures 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.080 when speaking about time. Like, the researchers started filming, ing 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.600 and analyzing these gestures, and what they found was that 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.480 the Yepno people all justtured downward towards the mouth of 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.320 the local river whenever they spoke about the past, and 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.400 whenever they spoke about the future, they actually gestured uphill 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.360 to the river's source. I love stuff like that. I mean, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.480 we always think of time as being linear, you know, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.320 like the past is behind you and the future always 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.320 lies ahead. I guess, yeah, But for the Yepno, it 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.840 sounds like the past is at the bottom and the 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.520 futures at the top. So basically time flows uphill in 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.080 their minds from then in a straight line. I'm trying 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.559 to think about what the logic would be behind that, though. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.640 Do you do you know why that is? Apparently the 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.400 researchers didn't find out for certain, but their best guess 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.680 is that the Yepnos procession at the time comes from 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.480 like the knowledge of their own history, and I guess 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.959 their ancestors came to the region by sea and then 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.760 climbed up the steep mountain valley to where they established 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.880 the village. So it's possibly that the Yepno connects sort 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.520 of that geography and the low lands with the past, 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.080 and think of time is something that travels upward, just 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.959 like they did. H I just think that's beautiful to 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.120 think about and just how different that is because we're 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.800 also used to thinking of time is something we have 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.600 no sway over, and I guess it's kind of nice 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.160 to be reminded that so many things about it actually 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.600 are shaped by our own perspectives. Yeah, that's true. Like 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.040 even once we started using clocks, everyone just set them 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.000 to noon based on when the sun was the highest 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.360 in the sky where they lived, so like one community's 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.240 time would be several minutes off from the time in 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.920 a town just a hundred miles away or so, and 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.720 you know, having a ton of different local times like 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.320 that wasn't that much of a problem at first. You know, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.040 this was still a time before a rapid communication, rapid transportation, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.800 you know, so it didn't really matter that different communities 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.319 kept different times. But as human beings began to explore 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.240 and you know, developed new ways to travel, this global 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.360 economy started to form. Suddenly the world found itself needing 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.840 a way to really measure and communicate time with one another. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.000 And that's really how we wound up with things like 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.680 time zones or Greenwich meantime. All right, so let's talk 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.960 a little bit more about that history. I mean, the 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.440 pivotal moment that you're talking about really started during what 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.960 we would call the Age of Exploration and ran right 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.280 through the Industrial Revolution. For example, here in the US 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.000 that you know, time took a major leap towards standardization 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.720 in the late eighteen hundreds. And when you look at 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:18.920 why that was, I mean, this was largely due to 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.600 that long distance travel that was finally possible because of 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.720 the rise of railroads, definitely, and the invention of trains 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:27.720 really changed the way we look at time in all 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.600 sorts of ways. For instance, even though people had tried 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.800 to predict the future for thousands of years, we didn't 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.720 think about the possibility of traveling to the future until 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.160 after the train came along. And once we had a 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.600 machine that could zip across these vast distances, these authors 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.680 like H. G. Wells began to dream machines that could 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.240 travel time as if it were a rail line itself. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.440 I mean, it's an interesting connection. But yeah, of course, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.800 railroads also forced people to think practically about time, not 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.200 just creatively. And you think about trying to coordinate train 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.320 schedules across all these different local time I mean, that 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.600 had to have been just this huge headache. And you know, 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.480 so it was November of eighty three that the American 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.480 railroads adopted a standard time system, and it was based 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.720 on the four time zones that we're familiar with today. 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.000 Here there's Eastern, Central Mountain, and Pacific and so the 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.040 clocks within each time zone were to be synchronized. And 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.560 then as a result of that, the railroads only had 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.280 to keep track of these four local times instead of 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.760 the dozens that they were having to keep track of before. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.720 And that was obviously this big improvement all around, Like, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.240 you know, apparently a lot of people didn't see it 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.360 that way at first. But I was reading this article 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.800 in Smithsonian, and there were a bunch of cities that 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.720 insisted on keeping their own local time zones for everything 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.160 except train schedules, and others refused to switch over that too. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.400 You know. Um it was mostly because these cities bristled 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.640 at the idea of railroads kind of up ending their 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.600 established way of doing things, like they just didn't want 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.959 to change. Like, there was this one editorial in a 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.400 Cincinnati newspaper where the author actually proclaimed, quote, let the 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.360 people of Cincinnati stick to the truth as it is 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.840 written by the sun, moon and stars. I mean, that 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.040 is what they do best in Cincinnati. Everybody knows that. 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.680 But I mean, you're right. Though, there was a staunch 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.800 opposition to this change over for years after the time 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.000 zone system was introduced, and so much so that, in fact, 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.600 that the country didn't officially adopted until I think thirty 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.800 five years later, and that was with the Standard Time 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.480 Act of nineteen eighteen. Now, this also established daylight saving 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.520 time for better or worse. Yeah, that's right. But America 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.000 did take another important step towards standard time and years between. 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.400 And in fact, just one year after the railroads introduced 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.960 US time zones, delegates from twenty five other countries gathered 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.560 in Washington, d C. For what was called the UM 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.920 the International Meridian Conference. And during this conference, the delegates 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.880 voted to recognize the Greenwich Meridian in London as this 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.120 common point from which nations would measure time and longitude. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.200 And so how did they decide on Greenwich Meridian? And 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.560 and I mean you can draw meridians at all different 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.000 points on the globe, of course, So what what made 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.920 this the clear choice? Well, for one thing, a lot 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.120 of countries have been using the Greenwich meridian as the 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.800 prime meridian for decades by the time the conference was held. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.880 So in England the line had been established as zero 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.760 degrees longitude in eighteen fifty one, and this fixed line 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.280 allowed merchant ships and explorers to keep better track of 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.240 their east west position while at sea. Like they could 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.040 use the position to the sun and stars to get 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.440 an idea of the time on board the ship and 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.920 then compare that to the local time at the prime 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:38.679 meridian to determine their approximate location. So British sailors started 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.080 traveling with chronometers set to Greenwich time, and soon the 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.080 practice spread to countries all over the world. But even 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.600 though this practice was legitimized at the four Conference, there 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.240 were still some holdouts, you know, just like there were 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.640 when railroads tried to introduce time zones. France in particular 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.040 didn't like the idea of using British time and longitude 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.720 as the world's standard. Instead, they were pushing for Paris 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.280 to be the side of the prime meridian. Of course, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.600 you know, no one else was really interested in this, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.400 and the Greenish meridian had already sort of like proven effective, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.560 so del Gets figured why start over? So how did 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.560 France take that? Did they take the loss sense tried 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.000 or do they pull a Cincinnati and throw a fit? Oh, 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.760 they definitely throw a fit. I mean the French delegates 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.520 if stained from voting at the conference. Uh. They even 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.800 decided to adopt Paris meantime as their national time, but 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.640 eventually they had to switch to Grennish mean time, you know, 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.160 like a few decades later. But even then some people 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.680 in France would refer to g M T as quote, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.920 the meantime of Paris retarded nine minutes and twenty one seconds. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.360 I mean, I guess that's why we've always said that 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.000 France is really like the Cincinnati of Nations. Yeah, old, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:51.320 all right, Well, since you brought up g M T, 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.640 we should probably talk a little bit about what that 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.320 is and how exactly it's determined. Sure, but before we 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:14.120 get into all that, let's take a quick break. You're 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.440 listening to part Time Genius, and we're talking about mankind's 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.840 many varied attempts to keep time. All right, Mango, So 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.000 we talked a lot about the worldwide impact of the 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.920 Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich mean time. But I'm not done 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.000 with this topic just yet because I'm still a little 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.280 hazy on the specific. So do you have a sense 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.800 of what we're actually referring to when we use these terms. Yeah, 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.920 So we always think of the Prime Meridian as an 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.400 imaginary line running around the world, just like we do 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.800 with the Equator, and it definitely is that, But the 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.560 Grenich Meridian is also a physical line. Like there's this 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.800 bronze strip that runs through a courtyard at the Royal 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.600 Observatory in UH in London, and it represents the boundary 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.840 between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. UH so if you 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:57.680 were to stand with one foot on either side of 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.320 the line, you technically be in two different hymns fears 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.680 at the same time, I mean kind of these days. 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:07.400 The prime meridian is determined by this complex statistical solution. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.560 It involves, I think, algorithms and the coordination with the 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.680 International Bureau of Weights and Measurements. It's it's way too 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.000 complicated again into hear, but the basic result is that 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.120 the physical line in the observatory courtyard is actually about 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.160 ten feet off from where the imaginary line is that 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.680 we might go by. Okay, so I see, So I 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.640 get that g MT is based on the local time 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.480 at that position of the prime meridian in Greenwich. So 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:34.760 that explains the G and the T. But what about 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.360 the M. How do means fit into this whole thing? Yeah, 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.840 the mean is just the average that's used when determining 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.400 the accurate time in Greenwich. So the Earth obviously rotates 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.720 at an uneven speed and the average just helps account 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.760 for that. Okay, well, that actually clears up a good bit. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:52.720 There is one story that I want to tell here 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.000 while we're on this subject of GMT, because there's the 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.600 belvil that the are you familiar with the Belville family. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.200 I do know about them. Yeah yeah, So just for 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.440 our listeners, as the family that made a living by 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.120 literally selling time to their neighbors. So, just in case 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.360 you haven't heard this story, it starts with an astronomer 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.240 and a meteorologist. His name was John Delvill and so 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.040 he began working as an assistant at the Royal Observatory 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.600 and Greenwich back in the eighteen thirties. Now, during this time, 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.040 he would always set his pocket watch to the observatories clock. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.159 And if you think about it, that was a pretty 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.720 awesome job perk because this was the eighteen thirties, so 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.760 it was tough to get the right time if you 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.959 didn't live really close to the observatory and there were 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.439 no radios, no telephones or even telegraphs to communicate that 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.760 time to other parts of London. So unless you had 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.920 access to the observatory, much like John did, you were 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.160 pretty much out of luck and your clocks were likely 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.399 to be off by you know, at least a few minutes. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.399 And so John looks at this problem and he sees 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.679 this money making opportunity and he starts selling the time 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.200 to a network of subscribers all over the city. Now, 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:00.800 each week he would get his pocket watch certified at 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.520 the observatory, and then he would set off to visit 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.920 London's clockmakers and shipping companies and even just some ordinary 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.560 citizens who really wanted to know what time it was exactly. 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.200 And so these customers they would pay an annual fee 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.239 for this service, and John would provide this thing for 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.080 like twenty more years until he passed away. It's unbelievable 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.760 that that he thought to make subscriptions for this thing 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.920 is just incredible. But you know what I love about 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.159 the story is how easily it could have ended just 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.760 there right like, Uh, by the time John died, time 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.320 signals were being set by telegraph to anyone who owned one, 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.440 so you know, his weekly visits weren't really necessary anymore. 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.080 But after twenty years of trusting John's pocket watch, many 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.600 of his subscribers couldn't stomach the thought of setting their 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.639 clocks to an untested piece of technology like the telegraph. 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.200 It's almost like in Japan when they put out calculators. Uh, 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.840 people need to have abicus is attached to them so 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.040 that they would double check the work of the calculators. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.000 But so anyway, they were all these people who were 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.240 desperate to maintain this service they knew and loved, and 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:08.240 and these loyal customers kept asking John's much younger widow, Maria, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.399 to carry on the family business. And so she did 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:16.080 for thirty six years when Maria carried her husband's watch 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.399 all over London. But then when she retired in her 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.920 subscribers still weren't ready to give up the service, so 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.800 they started petitioning for Belleville's daughter Ruth to take up 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.720 this uh business of London's timekeeper. And then she did too. Wow. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.879 I mean, you think the story might end there, but 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.399 it keeps going. And so even after making these weekly 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.000 rounds for an additional forty eight years, Ruth only stopped 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.320 in nineteen forty because World War Two had made it 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.919 too dangerous to walk the streets. I mean, if you 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.440 think about it, she was eighty six years old. Radios 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.639 had been broadcasting the time for decades at this point, 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.240 but the family business was somehow still lucrative enough for 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.200 her to keep up with it for her entire adult life. Yeah, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.359 I mean, it's it's pretty amazing that this family turned 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:07.359 like this niche service into basically a dynasty, right Like 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.359 it's a multi generational and family business. And it's also 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.520 amazing to me that like the Royal Observatory was just 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:15.560 down with this arrangement, like they could have shut it 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.280 down at any point, but they just never did. M Well, 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.440 as long as we're doling out credit here, I think 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.320 we should probably pause for a minute to give a 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.560 shout out to Belville's pocket watch, which actually even had 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.800 a nickname. It was Arnold, and it was named after 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.200 the person who made it, and all three Belvils relied 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.040 on this same eighteenth century pocket watch when they were 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.359