On Saturday, July 13, 2019, 11:22:10 AM PDT, grarpamp <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 7/13/19, jim bell <[email protected]> wrote:
>> https://physicsworld.com/a/entangled-aluminium-ion-is-worlds-best-timekeeper/
>> "Does anyone know what time it is?"
>> https://youtu.be/8qssWO8NSq0
>Time nuts indeed.
About 15 years ago, I read a biography of Alfred Loomis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lee_Loomis an extremely wealthy amateur
scientist. He was very instrumental in developing radar in America just
before, and during WWII. This was primarily done at MIT, in Building 20 (built
supposedly for the duration of the war, plus 6 months, but in fact not
demolished until about 1997.) I frequently visited Building 20 while at MIT,
because that was the location of MITERS (MIT Electronic Research Society, the
student electronic club.). It also housed TMRC (Tech Model Railroad Club)
which I occasionally visited.
At one point, Loomis visited England and ordered three (3) "Shortt Clocks", the
most precise mechanical pendulum clocks ever created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortt%E2%80%93Synchronome_clock
His choice to buy three of them, not one or two, showed that he was thinking
ahead, and more important, THINKING. Get one clock, and you know very little
about its accuracy. Get two clocks, and you only know how they differ, not
which one is causing the difference. Get three clocks, and you can begin to do
serious work about learning how accurate your knowledge of their performance
really is.
Jim Bell
