![]() Part of the reason was that there was no feasible way to synchronise every clock in a country, let alone right across the Earth. ![]() As recently as the 1800s, the US was operating with hundreds of different time standards, defined by cities and local railroad managers. At one place it was midday, but down the road it was 12:15. For centuries, it was impossible, and time could only be defined locally by the nearest clock. It wasn't always the case that everyone in the world kept the same time. Dig a little deeper, and you soon discover that time is more of a human construct than first appears. So, how did we arrive at this shared system of timekeeping in the first place, how does it stay accurate, and how might it evolve in the future? The answers involve looking beyond the clockface to explore what time actually is. For many industries and technologies we rely upon, from satellite navigation to mobile phones, time is the "hidden utility". ![]() Without these clocks – and the people, technology and procedures around them – the modern world would slowly drift into chaos. Along with around 400 others, placed all around the globe, they help the world define what time it is, right now, down to the nanosecond. They're called hydrogen masers, and they are extremely important atomic clocks. It's one of a few such devices held at the National Physical Laboratory in south-west London, helping to ensure that the world has an accurate shared sense of seconds, minutes and hours. It's not dangerous, but if I were to meddle with the device, it might just disrupt time itself. Turns out it's a pretty important box, and the sign is there for a reason. It's attached to a tall black box, on wheels, mounted in a steel protective case. I'm looking at a warning sign inside a laboratory in London. Nie straci nawet sekundy przez 200 mln lat".
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