On Time

I noticed today that things are more interesting when you are face to face with them. I am very much a hands on learner. Instructions get thrown out in favor of trial and error with a great bit of error being had before success. At the suggestion of a friend I made the ten minute train ride from London to Greenwich. Greenwich houses a world renowned observatory. You have heard of it, in fact every time you look to see what time it is you have the Greenwich Royal Observatory to thank. The Royal Observatory is set on the Prime Meridian, or 0 degrees longitude and every time zone is set using Greenwich as the zero point. Before I went into the observatory I jumped from one side of the meridian to the other about a hundred times saying "I'm in the Eastern Hemisphere, I'm in the Western Hemisphere, I'm in the Eastern Hemisphere, I'm in the..." I just had to.

I have never thought much of time. Hell I don't even wear a watch, but Greenwich shed some light on time for me. The unguided walking tour takes you through the history of clocks and chronometers as well as a history of the importance of lines of longitude. For centuries sailors sailed nearly oblivious to where they were in regards to being east or west of a given point. They knew their bearings, whether they were heading in one direction or another, but sailors like Columbus had severely inaccurate methods of triangulating their position. This is where time comes in. By knowing the time at a dedicated position, like Greenwich, and the time at your own position, you can tell at what line of longitude you are at.

Finding out longitude is simple if you know these two variables. The one variable that was hard to figure was the time at a given location. The chronometer, which is basically a pocket watch that is more precise and has markings for 24 hours instead of 12, did not come into existence until the late 1700s. This simple formula for knowing ones position is still used by GPS today. All global positioning satellites are equipped with atomic clocks and by sending signals to at least four other satellites and then to you it tells where you are based on the exact time, to the second, at your location. Pretty cool stuff.

The observatory also had an unbelievable view of London and a rock that claims to be the "Oldest thing that you will ever touch." I touched it, I don't feel any different. Greenwich is a cool little town as well. In fact all of London is pretty neat. The streets an housing here have a lot of character. Once you get out of the modern areas and into the older housing districts that haven't changed in hundreds of years it looks straight out of a Dicken's novel. Plus the accent that everyone talks with is just brilliant. Even when people are pissed off it sounds so proper. Today I heard a bus driver yelling at a lady that cut him off and he was saying all sorts of curse words, but it sounded so respectable and prim. If I get cursed out I would want it to sound like that.

I never would have cared about clocks, chronometers, time, longitude, had I not gone to Greenwich, and I am glad that I did. It was eye opening to say the least. Oh, yeah, and earlier in the day I was over near Buckingham Palace and they were having a changing of the guard ceremony. I hardly saw a thing, being as there were at least ten thousand people trying to get a glimpse as well, but I threw in a picture of all the people that were there. I swear it felt like London shut down and came out to watch. Apparently the ceremony happens every other day in August so this was a normal thing.