Some of us may recall slow dancing in the 60s as the Rolling Stones wailed out
Some of us may recall slow dancing in the 60s as the Rolling Stones wailed out "Time is on my side, yes it is. " Not any more. We all can sing the chorus: "There's too much to do and too little time."

Individually and collectively, we've created a commodity worthy of the New York Stock Exchange: Time. We've given it all the form and substance of a product for manipulation. We spend it, lose it, waste it, and manage it. We're told to make time, use time, take time, and, if we've had a run-in with the law, we might even "do" time.

It's the great equalizer, given in singular 24-hour chunks by the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon. No amount of money can buy it, no power can hold it, and no army can stop it. And one day we will all lift our eyes to the heavens and want the one thing we can no longer have: one minute more on this earth.

It is my contention that this relationship with time in today's Western culture began with the invention of time-telling devices and has been further influenced and in many ways ripped asunder by the speed of technological inventions and our response and interplay with such inventions. As Dr. Willem D. Hackmann posited in this summer session, "science is an indication of the culture." How have we come to this place in our culture where Time has been compressed, altered, and given capital-letter stature? How have inventions altered our expectations of what can be done in a given period of time? What is the current reality of this culture? And finally, where lies societal, corporate and personal responsibility in dealing with this reality?

This paper looks at the following areas:A brief overview of the development of the clock An overview of the influence of the clock on society and science The increasing speed of inventions and the advent of the computer The impact technology and our expectations of compressed time The impact of compressed time on humans What are we to do about it?

A brief overview of the development of the clock

Calendars were the forerunner of clocks. Ancient civilizations from the Sumerians to the more "modern" Aztecs found that celestial patterns offered them a rationale for marking the months, years and seasons. How fitting that astronomy would later prove to also be a clear partner in the marriage of more intricate time-telling and be joined as a navigational necessity.

Resources indicate that 5000 to 6000 years ago great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa initiated clock making as opposed to calendar making. With their attendant bureaucracies and formal religions, these cultures found a need to organize their time more efficiently. After the Sumerians, Egyptians were the next to formally divide their day into parts something like our hours. Obelisks were built as early as 3500 B.C. Their moving shadows formed a kind of sundial in the quest for more year-round accuracy. Sundials evolved from flat horizontal or vertical plates to more elaborate forms. 1

Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn't depend on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 B.C. Later named clepsydras ("water thief" by the Greeks who began using them about 325 B.C), these were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. A Greek astronomer, Andronikos, supervised the construction of the Tower of the Winds in Athens in the 1st century B.C. This octagonal structure showed scholars and marketplace shoppers both sundials and mechanical hour indicators. It featured a 24-hour mechanized clepsydra and indicators for the eight winds from which the tower got its name, and it displayed the seasons of the year and astrological dates and periods. Since a clock based on that flow can never achieve excellent accuracy, other inventions led the way. 2

In Europe during most of the Middle Ages (roughly 500 to 1500 A.D.), technological advancement was at a virtual standstill. Sundial styles evolved, but didn't move far from ancient Egyptian principles. During these times, simple sundials placed above doorways were used to identify midday and four "tides" of the sunlit day.

Then, in the early-to-mid-14th century, large mechanical clocks began to appear in the towers of several large Italian cities. We have no evidence or record of the working models preceding these public clocks that were weight-driven and regulated by a verge-and-foliot escapement. In 1656, Christian Huygens, a Dutch scientist, made the first pendulum clock, regulated by a mechanism with a "natural" period of oscillation. Although Galileo, sometimes credited with inventing the pendulum, studied its motion as early as 1582, Galileo's design for a clock was not built before his death.

Today's popular Swatch watch probably owes its ancestry to Huygens who in the mid 1600's developed the balance wheel and spring assembly, still found in some of today's wristwatches. This improvement allowed 17th century watches to keep time to 10 minutes a day. And in London in 1671 William Clement began building clocks with the new "anchor" or "recoil" escapement, a substantial improvement over the verge because it interferes less with the motion of the pendulum. In 1721 George Graham improved the pendulum clock's accuracy to 1 second a day by compensating for changes in the pendulum's length due to temperature variations. John Harrison, a carpenter and self-taught clock-maker, refined Graham's temperature compensation techniques and added new methods of reducing friction. By 1761 he had built a marine chronometer with a spring and balance wheel escapement that won the British government's 1714 prize (of over $2,000,000 in today's currency) offered for a means of determining longitude to within one-half degree after a voyage to the West Indies. It kept time on board a rolling ship to about one-fifth of a second a day, nearly as well as a pendulum clock could do on land, and 10 times better than required. 3

Over the next century, refinements led in 1889 to Sigmund Riefler's clock with a nearly free pendulum, which attained an accuracy of a hundredth of a second a day and became the standard in many astronomical observatories. One of the most famous, the W. H. Shortt clock, was demonstrated in 1921. The Shortt clock almost immediately replaced Riefler's clock as a supreme timekeeper in many observatories. This clock consists of two pendulums, one a slave and the other a master. The slave pendulum gives the master pendulum the gentle pushes needed to maintain its motion, and also drives the clock's hands. This allows the master pendulum to remain free from mechanical tasks that would disturb its regularity.

The Shortt clock was replaced as the standard by quartz crystal clocks in the 1930s and 1940s, improving timekeeping performance far beyond that of pendulum and balance-wheel escapements. Quartz crystal clocks were better because they had no gears or escapements to disturb their regular frequency. Even so, they still relied on a mechanical vibration whose frequency depended critically on the crystal's size and shape. Thus, no two crystals can be precisely alike, with exactly the same frequency. Such quartz clocks continue to dominate the market in numbers because their performance is excellent

Scientists had long realized that atoms (and molecules) have resonances; each chemical element and compound absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation at its own characteristic frequencies. These resonances are inherently stable over time and space. An atom of hydrogen or cesium here today is exactly like one a million years ago or in another galaxy. Here was a potential "pendulum" with a reproducible rate that could form the basis for more accurate clocks. 5

In 1957 NIST completed its first cesium atomic beam device, and soon after a second NIST unit was built for comparison testing. By 1960 cesium standards had been refined enough to be incorporated into the official timekeeping system of NIST. In 1967 the cesium atom's natural frequency was formally recognized as the new international unit of time: the second was defined as exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency replacing the old second that was defined in terms of the earth's motions. The second quickly became the physical quantity most accurately measured by scientists. The best primary cesium standards now keep time to about one-millionth of a second per year. 6

An overview of the influence of the clock on society and science

Once the clock moved from a sundial into a more mechanistic and therefore "controlled" environment, society began to respond to the presence of this instrument. This paper does not explore the relationship of a clock to an increased ability to navigate the seas with more precision, but rather how the clock has become a way in which, today, we navigate our lives.

The clock as a social symbol and lifestyle organizer

The clock was invented to satisfy a human need for measuring time. "At the same time, the machine which had been devised to satisfy particular human needs created new ones. In the Middle Ages, bells were added, playing a prominent role in medieval life. Everyone knew his or her meaning: telling the hour, when to work, when to play, and when to pray. The clock bells marked the beginning and end of fairs. This addition brings clocks into a true status as a determiner of lifestyle patterns and becoming part of the social structure. Man began to time activities that, in the absence of clocks, they never thought about timing. People became very conscious of time and in the long run, punctuality became an obsession. Over time, reference gave way from 'the time of vespers' to the time of the clock". 7

An invention now became part of language: o'clock!

Soon after its appearance, the clock assumed a status symbol. In Europe, towns competed with one another in the construction of lavish clocks and many had elaborate workings and movements. When the clock became portable, it became the fashion for nobles to have their faces painted on the timepieces. From Rolex to Bugatti, watches continue their symbol for affluence.

The clock as an influence on literature

In Europe, where the clock became an essential object of everyday life, modes of thinking and expression were deeply impacted. From the Middle Ages onward, the clock has been given human characteristics, some of which are not pleasant. There are probably a number of 21st century sleepers who might identify with the words of Welsh poet, Dafydd, writing in the late 14th Century.

"A curse on its head and tong, its two ropes and its wheel, its weights, heavy balls, its yards and its hammer; Its duck which thinks it is day and its unquiet mills Uncivil clock like the foolish tapping of a tipsy cobbler .A blasphemy on its face...A dark mill grinding the night." 9

In the 16th and 17th century, the clock prompted words of imagination. The poet Froissant penned that a clock was analogous to the sensations and manners of a loving heart. The clock as a convention, an entity, or a metaphor abounds in writing from Shakespeare to modern titles such as A Clockwork Orange.

The clock as an influence on philosophy

In the newly released book, The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years, W.Dante Hilts, a physicist and computer scientist nominates the clock as the greatest invention because he says it is "the embodiment of objectivity (which) paved the way for the rigor of objective science. It converted time from a personal experience into a reality independent of perception. The mechanism gave thinkers like Descartes and Leibniz a metaphor for self-governed operations of natural law."10 Keppler asserted that the universe is not similar to a divine, living being but rather is like a clock and Robert Boyle wrote that the universe is a "great piece of clockwork."

As a side note, Hilts served as the chief scientist of Thinking Machines Corporation where he designed and built one of the fastest computers in the world. He is currently co-chairing the Long Now Foundation which is building a clock designed to last 10,000 years!

The clock as an influence on trade and early "globalization"

The mechanical clock served as the primary lever in truly opening the Far East for trade with Europe. Up until the invention of the mechanical clock, the Chinese had little interest in things European, while Europe longed for the spices, gunpowder, and fabrics of the East. Merchant ships, using money made in the Americas, bought and resold Japanese silver and copper to China, cotton textiles to Southeast Asia, and Persian rugs to India.

Lack of eastern demand for western products was a serious problem but even more alarming was the fact that Asian manufacturers competed successfully with European products in the European markets. The unequal trade balance represented in East Indian silks and calicos bears some resemblance to today's trade imbalance.

The standstill was broken when Jesuit missionaries, headed by Father Matteo Ricci brought a clock into the Macao port in the late 1500s. Word of a "self-ringing bell" caught the attention of the Imperial Palace. That it could tell time was incidental. Through the 18th century, this "self-ringing bell intrigued the Emperor and subsequent officials as a fascinating toy. 11

The increasing speed of inventions and the advent of the computer

A colleague of mine, futurist Dan Burrus, has tracked the data behind the prevailing experiential evidence that says we are living in a sped-up world. Burrus contends that inventions, because of better (and faster) media communication now come to public attention and use at a quicker pace. Consider the following table.

Speed of Invention Development Invention Production Time Fluorescent Lighting 1852 1934 82 yrs Radar 1887 1933 46 yrs Ballpoint Pen 1888 1938 50 yrs Zipper 1891 1923 32 yrs Diesel Locomotive 1895 1934 39 yrs Cellophane 1900 1926 26 yrs Power Steering 1900 1930 30 yrs Rockets 1903 1935 32 yrs Helicopter 1904 1936 32 yrs Television 1907 1936 29 yrs Kodachrome 1910 1935 25 yrs Transistor 1940 1950 10 yrs

But the fastest growth of all is the computer, and specifically the personal or desktop computer.

Computers in Use, 1985-2000
(In millions) Country 1985 1988 1989 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 2000 United States 21.50 40.80 47.60 62.00 68.20 76.50 85.80 96.20 160.50