A clock that can detect tiny shifts in the flow of time itself

Re:A clock that can detect tiny shifts in the flow of time i... by jessaustin on Monday November 03, 2014 @05:06PM (#8553872)

If you have a protocol and enough fancy clocks, you don't have to know what's causing the perturbations or how big they are. At some level, there isn't actually a "real" time at all (partially, for the reasons you state). Rather, there is a time that we can agree upon. If some precise operation requires better time coordination than we can obtain via a particular configuration of these fancy new clocks, then we just need a different configuration, probably with more of them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A clock that can detect tiny shifts in the flow of time i... by sp332 on Monday November 03, 2014 @05:10PM (#8553892)

It's not a perturbation in the timekeeping of a single clock. This clock keeps incredibly reliable time. The fact is that time passes differently for each location in space. If you put another clock at a different altitude, they would keep different time, and they would both be correct.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A clock that can detect tiny shifts in the flow of time i... by jessaustin on Monday November 03, 2014 @05:18PM (#8553928)

Let me put it this way: if we had really fast trains (or just imagine some other schedule that must be coordinated over some distance), then it would matter that time passes differently for each location. However, we could still deal with that, with an appropriate time communication protocol and enough fancy clocks (probably spaced out along the train track).

[ Parent | on HN ]