[LEAPSECS] Leap second on analog watch

Tony Finch dot at dotat.at
Wed Jan 25 19:10:09 EST 2012


On 25 Jan 2012, at 21:29, Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu> wrote:


> Just to expand on this rather obscure exchange, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock :

>

> 'The clock is entirely accurate only once every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum may seem to catch or stop, and the lights may lag or, then, race to get ahead. According to Taylor, this erratic motion reflects life's "irregularity".'

>

> Would welcome a more fundamental citation than wikipedia.


The citations in that article are fairly comprehensive. The inventor is fairly cagey about the details of the clock - for instance, the official book is pretty but shallow. Almost everything written about it fails to mention or almost denies the existence of the computer regulator, and that is the part responsible for the irregularities and periodic synchronizations.

Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <dot at dotat.at> http://dotat.at/


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