A Brief History of Timekeeping
The history of timekeeping is a history of control—a duty to be “on time.” Could a new kind of clock change our relationship with timekeeping, forcing us to think not of hours and obligations but of eons and possibilities?
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Episode Notes
The first mechanical clocks were made to summon monks to prayer. Ever since, timekeeping technology has often been about control and obligation. But beneath a mountain in Texas, a new kind of clock is being built that’s meant to alter the way we think about time. Can it force us to connect our distant past with our distant future, tick by tick?
Podcast production by Bart Warshaw and Kate Holland.
