[time-nuts] The forbidden question

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

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In message <CANy2iXowYBPreNnbrjnU7_XLz=NJ5ZVaGVMT0PRmUD0=7BLf9A at mail.gmail.com>
, "William H. Fite" writes:

>What I am asking is not the validity of the quest for better timing
>but rather its tangible applications.

Tangible for who ?

For the average pedestrian there are no *current* tangible applications
where cesium level time-keeping isn't plenty.

However, the same would have been said about chronometers and quartz
clocks at various times in the past.

To answer your question we would need to look about 20-30 years
into the future, which seems to be the median time for better
timekeeping to break through to the wider public, even if they do
not know it has happened, (ie: longitude navigation, digital telephone
networks, GPS.

Peeking 20-30 years into the future is an unsolved problem, so I
would argue that your question is unanswerable at this time.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.