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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Telechronometer | ||
| A watch that synchronizes itself to a remote source. |
The task of setting a chronometer has always been as much of a problem as making one run properly. Heinlein happened on a very modern solution to this task in 1940.
| Harrington glanced at his wrist watch - a bulky affair - and whistled. "Good heavens," he exclaimed, "I forgot the time!" "We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone plus-five - it's radio-synchronized with the master clock at Washington..." "I call it a telechronometer; it's the only one of its sort to date." |
| From Blowups Happen,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Street and Smith Publications in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Today, of course, you can actually purchase a watch like this:
Introducing the worlds first dual time zone, analog/digital atomic watch by Atomix. Both analog and digital time displays are automatically synchronized with the US atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. The Atomix watch updates both analog and digital time ...
Want to know the right time? Visit the NIST radio station WWVB, broadcasting the correct time within about 1800 miles of colorado.
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Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
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SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
