this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
295 points (98.4% liked)

Technology

59135 readers
3093 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] PeterLossGeorgeWall@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's not true. e.g. If a clock loses time as soon as it is started (given power, wound), a time x. Then every day it will be wrong. Now, after n days it will come back around to being correct again. But, if n >> the life of the clock, then no, it will never be correct.

I can think of a few other scenarios where it's also true that it will never be correct.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But, if n >> the life of the clock, then no, it will never be correct.

After the life of the clock, it will be stopped, and thus right twice per day.

As you said, it may take a very long time to lap the clock, but once you stop drawing distinctions between "never" and "sufficiently infrequent", you get into the question of acceptable precision. Most people would consider an analog, two-handed clock to be "correct" so long as it is accurate to the minute. That means the threshold of tolerance for a "slow" clock would be the loss of at least one minute per 12 hour period to remain "incorrect". That means you'll lap the clock, and it will be correct, every 720 cycles, or about once a year.

If it loses time faster, you'll lap it faster. If it loses time slower, it will spend more consecutive cycles as "correct" within acceptable tolerance. It's possible to devise a mechanism which alternates between running fast and slow to ensure that it is actually never correct, but that would have to be built as an accessory mechanism on top of a functioning desynchronized clock in order to ensure that it's really never.

[–] PeterLossGeorgeWall@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm convinced, the accuracy of the clock matters. Your point that within one minute is on time is fair and as you said converges quickly. Definitely quicker than the life cycle of a regular clock. I'm a convert now.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

Oh, uh, I'm not sure what protocol is in this situation. We're in uncharted Internet-discussion territory here.