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Personal Note Archive January 2007

New Year 2007 Personal Note

The New Year begins at the Greenwich meridian at midnight on the 31st of December, on the border between the eastern and westen hemispheres. By some strange coincidence, the area of Greenwich has a very long history as a border between east and west. In the ninth century Britain was divided in two between a Saxon west and a Danish east. The border between the two reached a crucial junction at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Lea. This point lies directly opposite the position occupied by the Royal Observatory today. It seems that the Royal Observatory Greenwich lies on a line which has run through this part of the world for a long time. It is sometimes claimed that Stonehenge represents an ancient observatory, and that this location lies on some kind of line of force in the landscape. Looking out from the Royal Obervatory along an ancient dividing line the coincidences seem intriguing.

 

 

5th January 2007

As 2007 begins we might wonder what the year will bring. This passing of time seems inevitable, as though the years have passed in this way since the beginning of human history. But this is not so. Accurate human measurement of time began with sundials, probably amongst the people of ancient Mediterranean civilisations. Sun clocks could measure time with accuracy, but they would show different times in different places. A sundial in different cities would always show a different time since the rotation of the earth will have a sun clock showing a four minute difference for every one degree difference in longitude. Glasgow would have a different time to Edinburgh. When clocks were first invented the crude devices were often corrected against sun clocks. Later as clocks became more accurate there was a period of adjustment as people in one town got used to being in the same time as people in another town. There is a story of a clock maker in Chester who became a village joke by claiming that his clock was right and the sun was wrong. The eighteenth century poet Alexander Pope wrote in his Essay on Man that mankind were now trying to "Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, correct old time,and regulate the sun." But he also wrote in his Essay on Criticism "'Tis with our judgements as our watches, none go just alike, just as each believes his own." Clocks for Pope spoke of the regularity and continuing irregularity of the world. Our clocks tell us it is a new year, but time is a strange thing. In many ways the past is still with us. Enjoy exploring it this year.

 

15th of January 2007

Clocks at Canary Wharf

The countdown to 2007 in which the whole country shared on New Years Eve is a product of modern times. Accurate human measurement of time began with sundials, probably amongst the people of ancient Mediterranean civilisations. Sun clocks could measure time with accuracy, but they would show different times in different places. The rotation of the earth has a sun clock showing a four minute difference for every one degree difference in longitude. Glasgow would have a different time to Edinburgh. When mechanical clocks were first invented these crude devices were often corrected against sun clocks. Later as clocks became more accurate there was a period of adjustment as people in one town got used to being in the same time as people in another town. There is a story of a clockmaker who lived in a village near Chester; he became a village joke by claiming that his clock was right and the sun was wrong. The eighteenth century poet Alexander Pope wrote that mankind was now trying to "Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, correct old time, and regulate the sun." But he also wrote: "'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, just as each believes his own." Clocks for Pope spoke of the regularity and continuing irregularity of the world. Our clocks tell us it is a new year, but time is a strange thing. In many ways the past is still with us. Enjoy exploring it this year.