The End Of Time As We Know It

A Brief History of Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time has put the Greenwich observatory on the South bank of the river Thames in London at the centre of timekeeping for over 150 years.   What began as a means for British sailors to determine their location escalated until it defined local time all across the world.   The quest to determine longitude was the key factor that gave Greenwich its position.  The importance of being able to navigate using an accurate time and location gave rise to diverse competitions and government schemes designed to fast track the discovery of a reliable means of determining longitude at sea.

It was possible to determine longitude when on land, using a fixed reference point and a clock that could keep accurate time.  On the sea the challenge was much greater, fluctuating position and inaccurate clocks were charged with many shipwrecks and unreliable shipping services.   Over time chronometers were developed that could withstand the rolling and tilting of a ship and provide an accurate time.  The time that the chronometers kept as their fixed reference point was that of Greenwich, hence it became the place from which all time was measured.  When the time zones were calculated times in other countries began to refer to their time in the form of GMT plus 1 or GMT minus 3.

The end of GMT?

Now this enduring record of the Victorian British Empire is likely to end, in favour of more accurate means of recording time.  The GMT system bases time on the slightly irregular rotation of the earth, this leads to the necessity for leap seconds.  Leap seconds cause problems for the wealth of technology that we now possess including mobile phones, GPS and digital networks.  Computers process data in a strictly linear form and the erroneous seconds cause problems for the technology every time that they are necessary.

The suggestion is to change to the current most accurate form of timekeeping, atomic clocks.  The continuous time provided by atomic clocks would mean that there would only be leap minutes once or twice a century.

At the moment the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is in conference in Geneva discussing the prospect of the move to Atomic time, it is looking probable that atomic time will win the day, and that Greenwich will lose its position as the place that time starts every day.

Radio controlled watches are already regulated by atomic clocks.  Giving them the position of the most accurate timepieces that are available for wear.

Lighter Later

The result of the debate will have minimal impact on most peoples’ lives.   The largest effect that we may see is that the Lighter Later campaign could achieve its’ aims with lighter evening hours during the winter in the UK.