Time Determination and Time Keeping

Abstract

The rotation of the Earth provides the ultimate standard of time. As the fundamental unit of time we can use either the mean solar day or the sidereal day; these two units are related in a definite manner, so that when one is determined, the other can be inferred. The purpose of any timepiece is to subdivide the day into shorter intervals, and so give the time at any instant. No timepiece will give exact time; the error of the timepiece at some definite instant and the rate of change of that error, or, briefly, the rate, must be determined in order to extrapolate for the correct time at some subsequent instant. The accuracy of the extrapolation will depend upon the uniformity of the rate of the timepiece. Radio time signals sent out from an observatory, which is responsible for the determination and distribution of time, provide the most convenient means for deriving the error and rate of a timepiece. For normal navigational purposes an accuracy of about 0·05 seconds is adequate. But for the purpose of frequency control a very much higher precision is needed—but a precision in time interval rather than in absolute time. Some of the radio-aids to navigation depend upon the accuracy in standardization of frequency, so that high accuracy in time interval has become, indirectly, a navigational requirement.