*** Copyright c 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1995 by Nicholas
Johnson.  Conditions:  This material is copyright by Nicholas Johnson. 
However, permission is hereby granted by him to download, copy and
distribute the text to others if (1) the text is not altered, and (2) there is no
charge to the recipient, and (3) this copyright notice and conditions are
attached.  It is a copyright violation to distribute this material altered, or
without the copyright notice and conditions attached, or to use the
material in any way for which remuneration is received without the prior
permission of Nicholas Johnson.  Contact:   1035393@mcimail.com; Box
1876 Iowa City IA 52244; 319-337-5555.  Anyone using this material
should also be aware that, as a syndicated column, copyright may also
have been retained by the syndication services.  During the 1982-86
period of publication syndicators included:  The Iowa City Press-Citizen,
Gannett Corporation, Register and Tribune Syndicate, Cowles Syndicate,
and the King Features Syndicate. ***

My Grandmother's Clock

     Digital clocks in my life? Of course.
     But the centerpiece in my electronic cottage is grandmother's
100-year-old desk-top clock. Mother had it cleaned and fixed and gave it
to me.
     The 1909 Sears Catalog shows comparable ones under $10. So the
value is sentimental. But it's also a constant reminder of that other,
"analog" world.
     Missing the point entirely, my first instinct was to make it keep
perfect time. But it has a limp to its tick and is occasionally a little
forgetful.
     My clocks are all set to the second once a week with WWV in
Boulder, Colo., a Bureau of Standards radio station. All gain or lose a few
seconds. The grandmother clock is no exception.
     But sometimes, just to show off, she'll start chiming precisely on
the second. It's her way of saying, "Look young fella, keeping perfect
time's no big deal. It's just that usually I have more interesting things to
do."
     She's the only clock that speaks softly and swings a big stick. (The
digital watch has a piercing "beep-beep" on the hour.) She's also the only
clock that tells time after the batteries die or the power fails.
     But she's very analog.
     What do "analog" and "digital" mean? Analog is approximate,
digital is precise. A mercury thermometer, car gas gauge, or bathroom
scale are analog -- you estimate numbers from a needle or sliding scale.
Digital "readouts" on radios or clocks provide precise numbers.
     But precise is not the same as accurate. Have you ever heard
someone described as "often wrong but seldom in doubt"? That's digital.
After the power outage, the digital clock is still precise -- precisely wrong.
The grandmother clock is accurate -- but approximate.
     Radio amateurs have teachers called "Elmers." My Elmer is one of
the nation's best. "How good is he?" I hear you shout. He's so good that
he took his digital watch apart and reprogrammed it to keep accurate as
well as precise time. Not one second does it gain or lose.
     If you're an analog person, you just change from standard to
daylight time. You may have ignored this next news item. Last year the
earth's rotation skipped a second. Official clocks had to be adjusted one
night.
     For some reason, my Elmer missed the news. For days he suffered,
wondering what could have gone wrong with his perfect adjustments --
until his colleagues told him.
     Analog people still agree to meet each other "in the morning."
(Fortunately, they no longer use "about-ish" time, as in, "I'll pick you up
about seven-thirty-ish." ) I begin my 9:30 a.m. class somewhere between
0929:40 and 0929:55 -- 15 seconds leeway for flexibility. My analog
students arrive sometime between 9:25 and 9:40.
     During my lifetime I have watched the common unit of time go
from day parts ("morning," "evening") to quarter hours, minutes and
seconds (for the digital crowd). It is not clear to me that the trend will
continue (although the timer in my cheap digital watch measures l/100ths
of seconds).
     Sure, computer scientists measure time in billionths of a second.
But it gets to them. One, in Tracy Kidder's book, The Soul of a New
Machine, left -- saying he was going where time was measured in no units
shorter than seasons.
     Seasons, moons, weeks, days. We are well advised not to lose touch
with such measures of time. My grandmother clock's constant ticking
helps maintain perspective.
     She just chimed 10 a.m. one minute before my digital watch.
Maybe she has a big weekend coming up and just wants to get her work
done early. Who knows?
     She may be no more than an analog lady in a digital world. But
there's not a piece of electronics gear in the house that will run as long or
as well and have as much fun doing it.
                                              [ICPC February 28, 1983]
END OF FILE