How Things Work by Theodore Gray

Author:Theodore Gray [Gray, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2019-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

The fountain clock on the previous page is an extreme example of a cesium atomic clock, but smaller ones are readily available. This is my favorite example of a much smaller cesium clock: the whole unit including glass cesium chamber, heater, and antennas is barely a quarter of an inch (5 mm) high. This picture shows only those components: in operation they would be connected by fine wires to some microcircuitry and a power supply.

A Clock Joke

SUPER-ACCURATE TIME IS a serious topic, but fortunately we don’t have to end the chapter this way, because I know a clock joke!

First, you have to understand that in Switzerland there are twenty-six cantons, and the population of every one of them (except Canton Zürich) has a unique flaw or quirk of personality that requires it to be made fun of by everyone else. These flaws have been memorized by every citizen by the age of six. My family, fortunately, is from the canton of Zürich where the people are perfect (though I now live in Illinois, which is so hopeless the Swiss don’t even have jokes about it).

Zürich is known for the huge clock faces on its many church towers, particularly the great clock of the Fraumünster cathedral. From time to time this clock face requires painting, and one year the fine and upstanding people of Zürich, who definitely are not moneygrubbing, penny-pinching, stuck-up bankers, hired a low-bid painter from the canton of Bern. Big mistake there—frankly they really should have known better. After a whole week of work he’d made almost no progress! Asked why, he explained that every time he put his hand up to start painting, the darn hour hand would come spinning around and whack the brush right out of his hand! If you’re Swiss you immediately know why: those people from Bern are just so slow. (Trust me, it’s funny when told in Swiss dialect, without the explanation, to a six-year-old. I can hear my mother’s voice right now.)

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