TIDBITS 06/14/09
Benjamin Mark
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Before I begin ... last week's answer.
Name: John Jacob Astor
Village in Queens, NY: Astoria
Sundial
Time is a rather interesting phenomenon ... its measurement
filled with a myriad of totally useless facts. However ... keep
in mind that the more useless a fact is ... the more fascinating
it becomes. This was discovered by one Benjamin Mark on
the seventh day of June, 2009 at approximately 8:58 PM, EST.
For those of you who have recently turned fifty seven and a
few weeks ... you will have lived--by the measurement of current
time standards--more than a half a million hours.
Something you've all always wanted to know: The length of a
second. In olden days ... maybe one hundred and fifty years
ago or so ... the length of a second was 1/86,400 of an average
day. Today we know better ... I am here to remove all anxiety
over this conundrum. The length of a second is now known to be
the time taken for 9,192,631,770 vibrations of the timer inside a
cesium atomic clock to occur. Y'all feel better now?
As to the universally known fact that the earth is slowing down ...
not to worry. In 1972 scientists decided to make some days one
second longer than normal. This was done to keep the Earth and
the time shown on our time measuring devices (watches and clocks
and such) from getting out of step. These seconds are called--quite
aptly I may add--Leap Seconds. I know you all knew this but I
thought I'd throw it in anyway.
Of course ... if the Earth spun faster on its axis our days would be
shorter ... there would be more of them in a year ... and perhaps we
would not need leap seconds. Not sure if my logic is correct here ...
but I rather think it sounds good. Did you know that the pendulum
in a grandfather clock swings from side to side more than 86,400
time a day ... which equals more that 31 million times a year.
All of which brings us to the incredibly amazing invention of the
pocket or portable sundial. This keen little gadget is to the pedestal
sundial what the pocket watch was to the pendulum clock.
You're out strolling about on a nice sunny day. This item does not
work at night or on sunless days ... a drawback folks of old had
to live with. A pretty young thing approaches you and asks you
if you have the time. You grit your teeth in order to repress the
lascivious remark that suddenly bursts forth in your mindless brain
... and with the smile born of a genteel upbringing you quell your
primal urges ... dig into your vest pocket ... and pull out your mini-
sundial. It's a tad after one your tell the nymph and watch sadly as
she dashes off into the sunset ... her pretty little rump waving at
you in disdain.
The saving grace to all this is that I have an image of this portable
sundial. It's a winner folks. I am betting few of you have seen this
before. Wanna take a peek?
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will scroll
down the left side menu till you get to the area that says Current
Tidbits ... and you will see represented on our pages an image of a
portable sundial ... date of origin unspecified because the dolts who
wrote the book clearly didn't think it was important. Whaddya gonna
do?
And there ya have it.
That's it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark
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