[time-nuts] Re: What everyday uses are there for accurate clocks?

[Hugh Blemings]

Hi Dave, All,

On 30/11/2022 04:45, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 at 13:15, Hugh Blemings <hugh at blemings.org> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I'm sure others can speak in more depth than I, but birtually all
>     major
>     cloud providers and/or services that make use of large datacentres
>     (think Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin etc. if you want publicly aware
>     examples) - will run their own NTP servers or other similar time
>     standards to ensure their geographically dispersed systems have a
>     shared
>     understanding of what the time is.
>
>
>
>     This is crucial for things as mundane as consistent end user
>     experience
>     (who posted first?) to ensuring network security.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Hugh
>
>
> I can’t see how knowing who posted what first on Facebook, Instagram 
> etc affects the user experience, when differences in time are any less 
> than a second. So I am not convinced that timenut-grade oscillators 
> are needed for that purpose!  I don’t know if accurate timing is 
> important for network security.

A fair point - I was merely striving for end user friendly examples of 
why consistent (if not necessarily sub-second) accurate timekeeping 
might matter to them :)

> As far as I am aware, of the 7 base SI units (metre, second, kelvin, 
> candela, ampere, kilogram and mole), the second is the only SI base 
> unit where low uncertainty is important to a large number of people. 
> The instances where it is important seem to be limited to
>
> * Navigation systems (eg GPS)
> * Telecommunications
> * Financial transactions.
>
> Sure, timing is important for radio astronomy as someone mentioned, 
> but that doesn’t have any practical impact to many people.
>
> Dave
> -- 
> Dr. David Kirkby,
> Kirkby Microwave Ltd,
> drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk
> https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
> Telephone 01621-680100./ +44 1621 680100
>
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