Perhaps one of our list members attended the meeting of the History of
Science Society a few months ago, which if I remember correctly was in San
Diego. When I asked an acquaintance about the highlights of the meeting,
he described the following paper. A historian had been contemplating
clocks in European railway stations, and wondering what mechanical or
technical developments were used to coordinate timekeeping as railroads
developed. He went on a search of patent records, and found that some of
the applications were handled by patent clerk Albert Einstein. Since his
first theory of relativity concerns time and simultaneity, this could be an
example of a fairly mundane technology motivating some very abstract science.
>But from 1892 the railway companies used Greenwich mean time.
>So you were able to get the train of let's say 10:00 by leaving your
>home at 10:05 or even later.
>Some public clocks had a second (red) minute finger to show the
>difference between public time and railway time.
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Peter Abrahams [EMAIL PROTECTED]
the history of the telescope, the microscope,
and the prism binocular
