xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>he goes to lunch at 12:15 each day
I repeat DNA'a statement "time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so". So
we have time for lunch in New Zeland! ho hum! I am in the wrong universe.
Meanwhile David Sobel's "Longitude" presents an issue well worthy of the
application of cultural historic activity theory. The transformation that
produced Harrison's chronometer provides interesting possibilities for
filling the corners of the triangles, and then consideration of the clock
itself as a "tool" generates many possibilities. A time of Learning III.
"Precise knowledge of the hour in two different places at once--a
longitude prerequisite so easily accessible today from any pair of cheap
wristwatches--was utterly unattainable up to and including the era of
pendulum clocks. On the deck of a rolling ship, such clocks would slow
down, or speed up, or stop running altogether. Normal changes in
temperature encountered en route from a cold country of origin to a
tropical trade zone thinned or thickened a clock's lubricating oil and
made its metal parts expand or contract with equally disastrous results. A
rise or fall in barometric pressure, or the subtle variations in the
Earth's gravity from one latitude to another, could also cause a clock to
gain or lose time."
Martin
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