Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the seasons, and the natural cycles are the primitive points of reference in the flow
of time. The discovery of astronomical regularities represents a more sophisticated
way of dominating time. Stars give the spatial orientation and the temporal rhythms
to human activities. But, in a sense the time of stars, in the primitive societies on
the earth, depends on the sky, and a reliable and precise synchronization of events
is possible only at local level.
Clocks were available even before Galileo's discovery. In the middle ages, the
improvement of some technical devices is the basis of clocks, usually put in public
buildings, which have a precision acceptable for everyday life. However, the preci-
sion necessary for scientific measurements was possible after Galileo's discovery of
the
isochrony
of small oscillations. Galileo observed that the oscillation period of
a pendulum is constant, regardless of the angle of the swing, if it is around 3 de-
grees. On the basis of this phenomenon, further important technical improvements
allowed the construction of reliable clocks (for example, Christiaan Huygens' and
Robert Hooke's
balance spring
).
This was the passage from an astronomical time to a physical time, and was
the basis of modern physics where motion laws are expressed by equations relating
space measurements with the measurements of times necessary to cover them. Phys-
ical measurable time was also the basis for dominating the flow of time at nonlocal
ranges, for example, for the needs of reliable and precise methods of sea navigation.
