The Mysteries of Time

The Mysteries of Time

Time, with or without a capital T?

EDITORIAL

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By Serge Maillard

March 2024

Should “time” be written with a capital T, or without? Behind this apparently innocuous question lie many subtle considerations.

Time, with or without a capital T?

EDITORIAL

Español Français

By Serge Maillard

March 2024

Time, with or without a capital T?

Should “time” be written with a capital T, or without? Behind this apparently innocuous question lie many subtle considerations.

T

ime (with a capital T) is Father Time, the Time of History, Humanity, the Cosmos, the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. It’s closely connected to the notion of Eternity. But time with a small t, on the other hand, is what makes up our daily lives. The second that just passed, the life that flashes before your eyes, a baby’s kiss, the final sigh as life leaves the body. This time is infinitely precious to us, and yet it is insignificant in the context of capital-T Time.

These distinctions matter to us, as members of the watchmaking ecosystem, because it’s up to us to decide whether we care most about Time, or time.

Our latest issue is about Time with a capital T. And even if it only takes you a little time to read, we hope it will make you think for some time to come!

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Time, with or without a capital T?

WATCH FILES
The Mysteries of Time

The 10,000-year clock

The 10,000-year clock

In a bid to get us thinking about the “deep future”, the Californian foundation The Long Now is coordinating the construction of clocks designed to run for (...)

Horological uchronias: what if... Switzerland had embraced quartz?

Horological uchronias: what if... Switzerland had embraced quartz?

SERIES

For more than 20 years, quartz did so much damage to mechanical watchmaking, we no longer consider the reasons why it emerged nor why the Swiss watch (...)

“What if...”: welcome to horological uchronia!

“What if...”: welcome to horological uchronia!

INTRODUCTION

Uchronia is an appealing concept. A pure thought exercise. The philosopher appreciates its eminently speculative nature. The journalist balks at the (...)

A voyage outside time

A voyage outside time

In this short but gripping text, which reflects upon the perception of time, and life lived to the rhythm of water that may or may not come when expected, (...)

How France adopted Greenwich Mean Time (and still fought back!)

How France adopted Greenwich Mean Time (and still fought back!)

Today, the Greenwich meridian rules supreme. But the international standardisation of time was the result of a scientific and diplomatic tug-of-war between (...)

The Antikythera Mechanism: 2,200 years ahead of its time

The Antikythera Mechanism: 2,200 years ahead of its time

For more than a century, investigations have been taking place into a small mass of metal, retrieved from the bottom of the Aegean Sea. It has not yet (...)

Time: 10 simple answers to 10 simple questions

Time: 10 simple answers to 10 simple questions

Why do we have twelve months in a year? Is the moon important for timekeeping? Why are there seven days in a week? Answers are given by Chad Orzel, the (...)

Daylight saving: the eternal debate

Daylight saving: the eternal debate

The west coast of Europe is out of sync with solar time. One suggested solution is to reinstate four European time zones and scrap daylight saving. But (...)

Time's up for the leap second!

Time’s up for the leap second!

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) has repeatedly jumped one second to stay aligned with the Earth’s rotation. This leap second could be put on hold and even (...)

Savant syndrome: a human perpetual calendar

Savant syndrome: a human perpetual calendar

Some people are capable of naming the weekday of any given date. The majority are affected by autism and have the ability to memorise vast amounts of (...)

Timepieces that stopped history

Timepieces that stopped history

The work of Swiss author and photographer Luc Debraine is currently exhibited at Watches and Wonders and the subject of a fascinating book. All around the (...)

“Time passing slowly is an indirect sign that all is not well”

“Time passing slowly is an indirect sign that all is not well”

Our perception of time varies but not necessarily for the reasons we may expect. Sylvie Droit-Volet, professor at Université Clermont Auvergne, France, (...)

Atomic Clocks: Infinite accuracy from the infinitely small

Atomic Clocks: Infinite accuracy from the infinitely small

The definition of an accurate universal time brings us to atomic clocks. These complex instruments use the infinitely small – the vibration of atoms – to (...)

Listening to your internal clock

Listening to your internal clock

Our body has its own rhythm, which sometimes deviates from the twenty-four hour day set by society. Chronobiology now knows how our body measures time, and (...)

Linguistics: when the past is in front of us

Linguistics: when the past is in front of us

The way we talk about time depends very much on the language we speak: the future can be in front of us or behind us, to the left or to the right, up or (...)

Delving into the mysteries of spacetime

Delving into the mysteries of spacetime

Time plays an essential role in physics, in ways that leave most of us baffled. Join us on a five-stop tour of spacetime.