World Time Standard

[Philip Miller Tate]

Possibly, like identifying the dates of Ramadan, the point is that  
it's midnight when the Imam SAYS it's midnight... After all, rubidium  
clocks keep having to be adjusted because the earth just won't play  
ball. No rubidium clock could ever be as accurate as divine guidance.

(No offence intended to any religious group. This is a discussion  
that I often have with my many Muslim students, with respect given on  
both sides.)

Phil M1GWZ



On 11 Aug 2010, at 23:52, Frank Gentges wrote:

> Now it looks like Mecca wants to set the standard of worldwide  
> time.  See
>
> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/New-Clock- 
> Tower-in-Mecca-Challenges-Greenwich-Mean-Time-4680
>
> However, no mention is made of the establishment of multiple atomic  
> standards of any sort.  They seem to be focused on huge 150 ft  
> diameter clock dials with leds and flashing at prayer time.  It  
> could all be done with a PIC chip and big led array drivers.  Joe  
> Bento did this last year for several of us at Dayton.
>
> They need to do more than flashy lights and giant dials to become  
> the world standard of time.  How about a rack load collection of  
> surplus rubidium standards and some motorcycle batteries?
>
> I visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul Turkey several years ago and  
> they had some fascinating grandfather type clocks that could follow  
> the rules about prayer time.  They were unable to discuss any  
> detail about these clocks.  A detailed study of these would be a  
> good starting point establishing the early history of middle  
> eastern time keeping.
>
> Frank K0BRA
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tacos mailing list
> Tacos at amrad.org
> http://www.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos