Has your clock slowed down ?

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Just read this article.

**LINK**

I wonder what other problems it has caused?
BobH

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

50hz or nearly for Europe

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 09/03/2018 15:22:12:

Just read this article.

**LINK**

I wonder what other problems it has caused?
BobH

I would think none. A few minutes over a couple of months or so is just a nuisance for the clock watchers. I expect it is easy to work out the actual average frequency…. if one really wanted to….

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

I hadn't noticed……..

Jim

[vintagengineerParticipant @vintagengineer]

The standard Greenwich Mean time is fiddled every year to make up for errors in our orbit. We are supposed to have a double leap year every 300 years but the powers to be have decided to adjust this every new year.

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

My oven is too old to have a clock and my alarm clock is a radio-controlled one, so no I haven't noticed any slow down.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 09/03/2018 16:01:21

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

It will not be slowed in UK for the reasons given in article, UK frequency is unaffected by EU. All imports of power are over High Voltage DC links. National Grid control UK frequency

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

My Digital Alarm must be connected to the Central European System, it has lost 6 minutes since Christmas!

I was thinking it is just old and getting slower (a bit like me really).😉

Edited By V8Eng on 09/03/2018 16:23:02

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I suspect that the number of people now that use 50 Hz mains-driven clocks is very small, everywhere you see analogue wall clocks they seem to be quartz and may be radio-controlled, phones and computers get time off the network, there may be a few mains driven radio alarms.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

My wristwatch is 4 seconds fast, wondered why I was early.

Mike

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

Posted by vintagengineer on 09/03/2018 15:46:15:

We are supposed to have a double leap year every 300 years but the powers to be have decided to adjust this every new year.

A reference please. I have studied the leap year rules in reasonable detail and never previously come across across this.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

The code from the MSF atomic clock has provision for a leap second at the 16th second.

Mike

[EssmParticipant @essm]

As KWIL says National Grid control the frequency in the UK so it should not be a problem

This may be of interest **LINK**

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hmm. Perhaps the Greenwich Meridian now ends at the English Channel….

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by vintagengineer on 09/03/2018 15:46:15:

The standard Greenwich Mean time is fiddled every year to make up for errors in our orbit. We are supposed to have a double leap year every 300 years but the powers to be have decided to adjust this every new year.

 

Catch up – it seems you are still on the Julian calendar

Neil

Edit – a correction of one day every 300 years would mean that at mid-day by the clock it would be middle of the night by the sun at the 150 year point. The rate of drift is MUCH less than this and leap seconds are used to keep solar and official time in step.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 09/03/2018 18:28:11

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Wonder how Clipspring can get his Antikythera mechanism running accurately if the earth rotates at an unreliable rate over 300 years

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 19:28:14

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 09/03/2018 18:23:51:

Hmm. Perhaps the Greenwich Meridian now ends at the English Channel….

The French wanted to move it to Paris

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 19:22:36:

Wonder how Clipspring can get his Antikythera mechanism running accurately if the earth rotates at an unreliable rate over 300 years

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 19:28:14

Steady on! The Earth was still flat when that was made. We were also at the centre of the Universe. How things have changed…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 09/03/2018 18:23:51:

Hmm. Perhaps the Greenwich Meridian now ends at the English Channel….

.

'twas ever thus !

See footnote 5 on p174, here: **LINK**

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DPbx0-qgXu0C&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=1911+greenwich+meridian+by+reference+to+paris&source=bl&ots=zN2z411LG1&sig=lUsEu17KQ1G_YZPWGrVdDzd1imE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwip39jjgODZAhVpLsAKHb85DT0Q6AEwB3oECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=1911%20greenwich%20meridian%20by%20reference%20to%20paris&f=false

MichaelG.

.

Sorry: It took me a while to find a succinct reference.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 09/03/2018 19:55:01:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 09/03/2018 18:23:51:

Hmm. Perhaps the Greenwich Meridian now ends at the English Channel….

Sorry: It took me a while to find a succinct reference.

Dan Brown never did find one…

Neil

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

I thought the rule went like this: If the year is divisible by four it would be a leap year, unless it is also divisible by 25, when it would not be, unless it is also divisible by 400.

so 2020 would be a leap year (divisible by 4). 1900 would not be a leap year. (divisible by 4 but also by 25) 2000 would be a leap year. (divisible by 4, 25, and 400)

There is a monument in Aachen, Germany that shows the longitude according to the Paris meridian, it dates back to when Napoleon was running loose all over Europe.

John

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

Posted by John Olsen on 09/03/2018 21:17:00:

…2000 would be a leap year. (divisible by 4, 25, and 400)…

John

Not allowing for that was the cause of some of the Y2K problems as February 29 and December 31 were not recognised.

Incidentally, I still haven't worked out why it wasn't on anyone's horizon long before. As early as 1985 I had scheduled spares orders (for power station planned maintenance) shown as over 80 years overdue thanks to two-digit years. Don't even ask what they did to the MRP suggestions

Brian

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Y2K was mainly a problem of data storage on older software systems. In the early seventies, we were running MRP, stock control and purchasing systems for a medium sized electronics manufacturer on mini computers where the hard drives were 24" diameter and only stored 25Megabytes per disc. Total system storage was 50 Mb fixed and 50 Mb removable. Consequently, an 8 digit date was compressed down to a 2 byte Hex word which when expanded back became a 6 Byte date (DD/MM/YY). Each part probably had 8 or more dates, every transaction had at least two dates and probably more. All ASCII code was truncated and packed, all decimal was packed . Historical records were stored on 1000 foot 1/2 " reel to reel mag tape and the floppy disc had not been invented!
I don't think we ever expected our software to be running 25 years after it was first written – but we were proved wrong ! Our mini computers were converted from CNC controllers, had magnetic core memory (64 Kilo Bytes) and in spite of these limitations we ran a business – You may have heard of them CINCINNATI MACHINE TOOLS.

I think that in retrospect, our original software which we developed in house was reasonably cheap and that replacement systems were almost too expensive and un-proven. But that is all history now.
BobH

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

My microwave clock is 4 minutes slow and the cooker is 4 minutes fast.

Y2K brought back happy memories. I'm still not sure it was a real problem.

• A colleague tested 21 different microcomputers (various makes, models, and ages) and they all rolled over correctly apart from one that was OK after a reboot.
• Most of the mainframe code that used DDMMYY turned out to be for non-critical display; it just went from 99 to 00 and nothing broke.
• The code that actually did date arithmetic almost always used some form of day-code unaffected by changing millennium. ICL Daycode was the number of days since an epoch of 1/1/1901. As our olde worlde mainframe had 24 bit words the real 'millennium bug' wasn't due to strike for another 22,000 years. Many mini-computers and modern embedded systems are more worrying – their time code is in seconds since 1/1/1970 and this breaks on 32-bit systems in 2038. That could cause real problems. On the other hand 64-bit systems won't break until the Year 292,277,026,596!
• I operated a server system that was a clone of a much bigger Microsoft NT system. We received and applied a set of updates on CD-ROM to fix all the millennium bugs. A few months after the millennium it was discovered that the installation had failed and none of the essential date patches had been applied. No problems caused by failing to patch the system.
• Between 2000 and retirement I never met anyone who had personally seen a genuine millennium bug.

I shall always suspect the problem was hyped to drum up trade. I'm sure it existed to some degree, just not on the scale claimed. Anyone know different?

Dave

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