|
Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1999 Internet time will set us free WHEN I first started travelling I did so with one wrist watch, which served me well for years, but on one fateful day it failed and I missed a vital flight. Since then I have been paranoid and wear two watches, one for British and one for local time, and I constantly check the difference. Of course, I could have purchased a dual-mode device, but they are prone to common failures such as battery run-down. Time errors have also seen me mistakenly telephone people on the east coast of America from California without recognising that the three-hour time difference would find them asleep. So by a series of errors and misjudgements I have become increasingly sensitised to time accuracy. Happily, one of the key features of email is that it puts time back into our lives as we fire off and forget messages without a thought of what the recipient might be doing. However, time remains important from the perspective of system failures, software upgrades, Web downloads and technical support. If you are on the other side of the planet and need help, the window of opportunity may only be two hours a day. It is also difficult to arrange audio and videoconferences, virtual meetings and work sessions. Our original attempts to create time standards were almost entirely due to the requirements of steam trains and navigation for shipping. As soon as atoms could go faster than bits it proved impossible to synchronise timetables across even the smallest of countries. Once at sea, accurate timekeeping became imperative for navigation. The chronometer sprang out of this need, and telegraph systems were invented to meet the need for timing and control of transport networks. The technology was then extended to become the telephone network and the infrastructure for international commerce. So history may be repeated as we now seek to synchronise machines and people across the planet. Probably the single most useful proposal has been for one universal Internet time, with all computers, devices and organisations set to the same standard. It would then be a far easier and more convenient to manage life in the real and virtual worlds. For example, while it might be 10am in London and only 5am in New York, Internet time would be the same in both places. All of this will be further compounded when we link time and physical position. If time is money, then so is space, and the Global Positioning System will soon become as important a part of the infrastructure as roads, rail, water, gas, electricity and optical fibre. GPS is currently available with a spatial resolution of around 25 - 100m for vehicles, handheld devices and even wristwatches. By 2010 this will be down to 1 - 3m, and when augmented by terrestrial radio such as cellular telephone signals, we can expect resolutions down to about 2cm by about 2015. In principle we will then be able to locate objects in four dimensions (three space and one time) to within 2cm and a few microseconds. This will revolutionise aircraft flight management, oil exploration, sea condition measurement, weather prediction, precision farming, logistics and construction. Beyond this, we could see the four-dimensional spirit level and the lost golf ball locator. Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is: |
Telegraph Group Limited endeavours to ensure that the information is correct but does not accept any liability for error or omission.
Users are permitted to copy some material for their personal use, but may not republish any substantial part of the data either on another website or as part of any commercial service without the prior written permission of Telegraph Group Limited.