Why We'll Never Build a Perfect Clock

We can make clocks that keep accurate time for millions of years. We can also make clocks with such high resolution they tick one billion billion times per second. So why can't we make a clock that does both?

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Sources:
Dr. Florian Meier, interview

Image Sources:

[wormspeaker]

"Sorry boss, I don't use my alarm clock anymore. I couldn't stomach contributing to the entropy problem."

[MitchBurns]

Electrical engineer here. Computers are already kind of running into that problem, and have been for years. Computers have been increasing entropy at a high rate for a very long time. It’s a real problem. We don’t usually think of it as an entropy problem, but rather as a thermal problem. The faster and smaller transistors get, the more heat they produce. And as many people know, heat is the most chaotic form of energy. So this really is an entropy problem.

[MLeoDaalder]

And that's my cue to re-read the Discworld novel Thief of Time (by Terry Pratchett). XD
It involves a plot by the Auditors (who want everything to stay exactly where it is and not move or change, thank you very much) duping a clockbuilder into building the most exact/precise clock, which then stops time.

[tommargolis]

Thanks for the video! BUT: Entropy is not a measure of "disorder." A soap bubble is highly-"ordered" but is in its highest-entropy state. In fact, if you push a soap bubble to be more disordered - making it an amorphous blob rather than a sphere - it will pop back to its higher-entropy state: an ordered sphere.

Entropy is a measure of probabilities. Smoke spreads throughout a room not because its order decreases, but because it is MUCH more probable that, at any moment, the smoke blob in the center of the room will spread than will shrink.

[BenjaminCronce]

Current CPUs care a lot about synchronization. But there are asynchronous designs that are much more difficult that are faster and more efficient. They were used in the far past during the the exploration stage of computers, but synchronous designs are simpler and have been greatly improving over time well enough to not warrant the investment, yet.

[rickseiden]

I am one minute into this video right now, so it may be mentioned, but I have to congratulate the editor(s) of this video on the Easter Egg. It's kind of a thing that clocks and watches show 10:10 when shown in a catalog or a commercial. I don't remember why, but once you see it, you can't unsee it. This video is ten minutes and ten seconds long. 10:10. Nicely done!

[nelsonduel]

I personally believe time isn’t an actual thing in the way we think about it. The past and the future are ideas that help us understand time but they aren’t actually real. Time is just the measure of change but the only phase of time that exists is the present and the present changes. That’s just from my brain trying to understand time along with a few videos about the subject so take it all with a grain of salt but it makes sense to me.

[Cyliandre]

I will now become a low tier batman villain with the evil plan to destroy all clocks to bring back order to the world!

[michaeltyrrell]

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” - Ford Prefect

[Sheamu]

As a watch salesman, I'm going to send complaints to this video.

[sydhenderson]

See "Thief of Time" by Terry Pratchett for the physical consequences of succeeding in this quest.

Atomic clocks can be pretty small despite the monster shown in the video. Not the super-duper caesium clocks, but the slightly less accurate rubidium clocks, which are used in GPS satellites.

[bestaround]

Well, I now have a new physics breaking magic item to include in future games. The perfect clock

[vonkruel]

I've got one high accuracy quartz (HAQ): my Bulova Lunar Pilot. So far it has been gaining 2-3 seconds per year. How is it so much more accurate than a typical quartz? 1. Thermocompensation (the onboard computer monitors the temperature & accordingly it adjusts timekeeping to minimize error). 2. Higher oscillation rate: e.g. 262, 144 Hz instead of 32, 768 Hz. There's more that can be done, too, such as: 3. using superior quality quartz crystals. 4. pairing each crystal with a computer that's been "programmed" with information about how _that particular crystal_ performs over a range of temperatures (Grand Seiko does this). Grand Seiko even gives you a "trimmer" in their quartz movements, allowing you to compensate for any drift as the watch ages over a period of decades or even centuries.

[joylox]

The video of the clock ticking randomly reminded me of when my solar watch was dying because it was winter and I was hiding it in my sleeves. It was so weird and got off track so quickly.

[TW-ltvr]

Classic programmer's problem: time stamping your code within your code 😎

[kingkiller]

My only comment is the reminder that while entropy and the flow of time are closely related increasing entropy DOES NOT EQUAL time flowing forward, or local decreases in entropy would be observable areas where time flowed backwards. That doesn't happen because entropy and time are related but not the same thing.

[Respectable_Username]

8:29 Random Sydney jumpscare! So strange having stock footage of a place I've actually been 😛

(That's the foot bridge between Wynyard and Barangaroo in the city)

[ZeusTheIrritable]

I knew my refusal to organize my books and video games served a purpose.

[chaunceyfeatherstone]

I have been cornered by a philosophy major at a party. He claimed he was an optimist. He intended to write the perfect philosophical treatise -- and then die. It didn't occur to him (nor me, at the time, because we were both pretty liqoured) that the root of "optimist" was "to opt", that is: to choose. And when you're dead, your options are severely limited. Those people are weird. And this observation coming from a drama major.

[Tomservoca]

Jeremy Clockson and The Sweeper would like a word.