Time

Traditional agriculture depended on cycles of natural time and organic growth. Most societies were unable to make precise time measurments, nor were they terribly interested in doing so. The world went about its business without clocks and timetables, subject only yo the movements of the sun and the growth cycles of plants. There was no uniform working day, and all routines changed drastically from season to season. People knew where the sun was, and watched anxiouslt for portents of the rainy season and havest time, but they did not know the hour and hardly cared about the year. if a lost time traveller popped up in a medieval village and asked a passerby, ‘What year is this?’ the villager would be as bewildered by the question as by the stranger’s ridiculous clothing.

During the Second World War, BBC News was broadcast to Nazi-occupied Europs. Each news programme opened with a live broadcase of Big Ben tolling the hour -the magical sound of freedom. Ingenious German Physicists found a way to determine the weather conditions in London based on tiny differences in the tone of the broadcast ding-dongs. This information offered invaluable help to the Luftwaffe. When the British Secret Service discovered this, they replaced the live broadcasr with a set recording of the famous clock.

Source: Sapiens