Tuesday 14 February 2012

Monday's Food for Thought

There was something on the news last week about a power station playing with people's digital clocks, such as microwave times fast forwarding an hour. Suffice to say there were a lot of confused people that day.

After a quick google search I discovered a link to the MAIL ONLINE website that described a similar incident in Sicily last year. Mount Etna's short eruption was said to be the reason behind people's clocks running fifteen minutes fast. Pretty weird, huh? Not something scientists think to predict.

One day the world will run on digital clocks. One day our timekeeping will be reliant on satellites and flashing numbers. So what if the clocks stopped working, like if a solar flare wiped out radio waves or something happened that scientists didn't consider until it was too late? What would life be without exact time?

WHAT IF we had to use another way to tell time? We still need to go to meetings and see movies and arrange flights. What kind of technology could take over from our usual time-telling? Special sun dials? Planet alignments watches? Moon trackers? Or instruments that measure the Earth's rotation?

Again, it's not something to base a whole story on, but those little details can make your "other" world that extra bit special.

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