There was a time when almost everyone wore a watch. There was a time when almost everyone had a mechanical clock in their home. There was a time when almost no one had any kind of timepiece at all.
There was also a time when pretty much everyone had a VCR that blinked 12:00 AM twenty-four hours a day.
But what about now? Now your phone asks GPS satellites the exact time once an hour at least. Now the dashboard in your car syncs up to Master Clock 2 at the US Naval Observatory. Now your stupid microwave probably knows the exact second to eight decimal places.
So now nobody wears a watch anymore, right? And Timexpo, the Timex museum in Waterbury, is closing its doors. But at the same time, sales of Swiss watches recently hit a 20-year high. And there apparently aren't enough watchmakers to keep up with the demand for new watches.
And… what about tomorrow? Tomorrow some fancy new device comes out that calls itself a watch even though timekeeping is probably the last thing anyone will do with it. (On the other hand, though, how much is timekeeping the point of a fancy old Rolex really?) Tomorrow we'll have clocks that are so accurate that they'll measure the effects of relativity on the clocks themselves.
This hour: the past, present, and future of timekeeping.
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GUESTS:
- Tom Manning – Curator of clocks at the American Clock & Watch Museum
- Demetrios Matsakis – Chief scientist at the US Naval Observatory's Time Services
- Stacy Perman – Author of A Grand Complication
MUSIC:
- “Mr. Nice Watch” by J. Cole
- “Hands of Time” by Groove Armada
- “Julep” by Punch Brothers
Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.
