Time Telling - Past, Present and Future

Reported from Readers Digest, Condensed from The House Beautiful magazine 1927

It is hard to believe, when we look back, how times have changed in the matter of time itself. A hundred or two hundred years ago a watch was a rich man's bauble, and clocks were not only few and far between, but not over accurate, and often set by the sun according to the owner's guess. The people of the world sighted the sun by some traditional land mark and determined when it was noon. On the big estates there were sundials, and when the day was cloudy or the rain came down, everybody hearkened to his appetite, or, at home, took the word of the old-time clock with its wooden works.

The use, the need, and the dependence upon correct time is essentially a modern condition. In the old days, there were no trains to meet. Men rode or drove their horses and arrived when weather and travel permitted. There was no rush from place to place, as in the present day. If our ancestors could see hew the present generation wears itself out in service to the clock, surely they would wag their heads in wonderment and derision. But the funny part of it is that with all our dependence upon time, we have never, until just now, devised a way to keep everyone's time alike. We all know how, whenever three or four persons compare the time, it is rare if there is not a divergence of at least ten or fifteen minutes in their watches. Before the (World War 1), the telephone companies were so burdened with calls asking central for the time that this courtesy had to be discontinued.

Everywhere in the Republic of Uruguay there is a winking of the electric lights at eight o'clock each evening —- an official time flash to signal the correct time to the public. It is universal because electric lighting is a government monopoly. It is a wonderful convenience. No one appreciates the annoyance that it saves until he has experienced the novel comfort of knowing that his watch is right and in agreement with the rest. Standard time has for many years been indicated by governments by an official time-ball, which is hoisted to the top of a staff and released to drop at noon. It happens each day in Washington, and has long been telegraphed throughout the country as standard time. More recently, time has been sent out broadcast from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington by wireless. The idea of flashing standard time to every home over the electric service has already been instituted in Schenectady, New York. I believe that ultimately it will become a universal custom; a little thoughtful, friendly service by the company. It is not as simple as it sounds, however, for a modern generating station and its distributing system is a complicated affair. 

The electric clock is an interesting innovation for it means virtually taking our clocks and throwing away the works, and, by installing a tiny electric motor inside, to turn the hands around the dial, put an end to all the winding, with assurance of what practically amounts to perpetual accuracy. This system is already operating in some thirty-odd cities in the United States. It is simplicity itself and made possible by the fact that, in most of our chits, electricity is delivered to the consumer in the form of alternating current, with sixty cycles as the standard. Just a word of explanation will make this clear. There are two kinds of electricity used in electric lighting: direct current and alternating current. The direct current flows along the wire in a continuous stream just as water flows through a pipe. Ninety percent of the electricity that is generated for light and power service, however, is alternating current, which flows first in one direction and then in the other, reversing its direction with great rapidity, usually one hundred and twenty times to the second, or making sixty cycles, as it is expressed. 

It is to the interest of the power company to regulate these alternations as accurately as possible, for their own benefit in the effect on reading instruments and for the benefit of large consumers of certain classes, and in the past there has been a variance of only, say, two cycles. A device now makes it possible to regulate these alternations absolutely, so that there will be exactly sixty cycles. A little motor may be used that will turn in exact accord with the alternations of the current and turning to that scale it needs only a dial and a pair of hands to become a clock. Wherever there is a lamp socket or plug receptacle, an electric clock may be connected and will keep time to the pulsing of electricity. It need never be wound. It requires no regulation. It is an interesting prospect -- a public service of correct time flashed to all the people wherever they may be at eight o'clock each evening, by the winking of all the electric lights, plus a private service of correct time provided by electric clocks which anyone may purchase at no more cost than for a good clock that we buy today, but which will maintain accurate time for your household perpetually.