Time has long been an incredibly important concept, though time with all the trappings that we recognize today has not always necessarily been present, at least not in its modern sense. In fact, time is so old that it can be traced up to 6,000 years in the past. The ancient Egyptian people were some of the very first to tell time, and they used obelisks as a form of sundial – though a primitive form – to keep track of time as it shifted over the course of the day. However, even mechanical clocks likely came about much earlier than you might have suspected, as such clocks were first ever invented all the way back in the 1300s, on the continent of Europe. In the many years that have passed since, of course, time and the way that we keep track of it has only continued to grow and evolve.
In fact, alternative time tracking and schedules have even been introduced in some parts of the world, though such methods of tracking time have typically failed. For instance, the Soviet Union once tried to make weeks only five day and then six days instead of the full seven days between the year of 1929 and 1931, though this ultimately was not a successful experiment. And this was not the first time that something of this nature had come about. Back during the years in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the revolutionaries themselves tried, in vain, to institute a ten hour clock – though this too was also ultimately unsuccessful.
Fortunately, time is much more regulated nowadays, with one cohesive standard for time keeping seen all throughout the world. And with the advent and widespread usage of modern technology, keeping a standardized time has become easier than ever before in history. Consider, for instance, the network time server. The network time server is hugely important in today’s day and age, thanks to the fact that this network time server has now been relied upon since before the year of 1985. This makes the network time protocol associated with the general network time server the oldest internet based time protocol in the history not only of the United States, but of the world in its entirety as well. Therefore, it is clear to see that the network time server is likely one that is here to stay.
Precision time protocol has also become an important part of this network time server, though the PTP server is something that has come about in more recent years, first dating back to the year of 2002, which is still less than two full decades in the past. The typical PTP time server is typically used, as part of a larger network time server, to synchronize all clocks through a computer network, therefore helping to even further standardize time as we know it, making it something that is kept as consistently as is possible from one end of this planet to the next.
But how exactly is something like the PTP time server or even the network time server as a whole even obtained? Typically, it all goes back to the use of GPS satellite systems. GPS satellite systems can be found in plenty up above our planet, where they float in space and transmit important signals back down to earth. And there are likely a great deal more of them than many people even actually realize. In total, there are more than 30 of these satellites currently working – 31 of them, to provide the most accurate information possible.
There is no doubting the fact that time is hugely important in our society – and has been so for societies all throughout the course of history. Thankfully, we now have more accurate means of keeping track of time than ever before, making time keeping something that certainly should be considered as one of the most major accomplishments to have been obtained. In the years that are to come, hopefully we will go on to discover even more accurate ways to standardize time and make it easier to keep track of than ever before.
