
When the Standardization of Time Arrived in America [audio] - jonbaer
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-standardization-time-changed-american-society-180961503/?no-ist
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ajlburke
You can still see clocks in the UK from the late 19th century which have two
minute hands: one for the local time and the other for the official Greenwich
time.

The Bristol Exchange has a big one with the hands ten minutes apart, since
that's the difference between local noon in Bristol and noon at Greenwich.

Supposedly in Oxford you can still be 5 minutes and 2 seconds "late" for
classes or meetings since that's the offset between there and Greenwich. I've
only heard this third-hand - are there are any Oxonians out there who can
confirm?

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eric_the_read
I can't listen to this at work unfortunately, but if it's not referenced in
the podcast, let me recommend the book "Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and
the Creation of Standard Time" by Clark Blaise. It's an interesting read about
how he came up with the idea of standardizing time (within bounds) and how he
managed to pursuade the world to go along with it.

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sverige
There was no need to standardize time until it became possible and common to
travel fast enough that regular old sidereal time was insufficient and even
dangerous; i.e., until rail travel became common. It's only been 130 years
since we all got pushed into the artificial noon most of us have today. (Some
fortunate souls live on the line where it's actually noon when the clock says
it is.)

~~~
theoh
Actually, your last line can only be true for mean solar time. The sun leads
or lags mean solar time, by a varying amount described by the misleadingly-
named Equation of Time.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time#Apparent_solar_ti...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time#Apparent_solar_time)

(The annual variation is due to two main factors: the tilt of the Earth and
the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. I got asked about this in a programming
interview once and couldn't remember! Never again.)

~~~
Arelius
> I got asked about this in a programming interview once and couldn't
> remember!

What specialty do you have where this is expected knowledge?

