Word: seconds
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...timepiece would be virtually useless today: computers, communications satellites, global-positioning receivers and telephone-switching systems need a precision beyond anything conceivable even 50 years ago. Time technology long since abandoned mechanical devices and even the hum of quartz crystals. For true precision--accuracy to a billionth of a second--you need to travel, virtually at least, to a place like the perfectly circular, well-guarded park that sits in northwest Washington. There, on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, a nondescript concrete building houses the nerve center of the U.S. Directorate of Time...
Behind its barred windows sit 28 atomic clocks, four of them holding atoms of hydrogen and the rest cesium. When excited by lasers or irradiated with microwaves, the atoms begin to dance with an utterly regular vibration that's monitored by computer. Once each second, the results are fed into America's Master Clock; the measurements from this and similar clocks around the world are sent to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures outside Paris--the ultimate timekeeping authority. It is there, next Friday, that the pulsing of billions of atoms will officially signal that civilization's odometer...
...asked Margaret Carlson, who usually writes about politicians, to order up dinner on the Web and have a party. The second half of that proposition went well; the first part makes for quite a tale. And despite a lot of coaxing to order only exotic items, Margaret wanted a safety dish and clicked for a ham. Perhaps covering politicians all these years...
When Jeff Bezos came to lunch at TIME last month, the second most noticeable thing about him was his laugh, a loud rat-a-tat-tat that startled some of us at first and then became infectious. The most noticeable thing about Bezos, however, was his intelligent passion. He fervently believes that he and Amazon.com will change shopping forever and that it is only a matter of time before you buy just about everything you need, from toothpaste to Tiffany lamps...
...challenge and cut down the big guy. Two centuries ago, Russia, Prussia, Britain and Austria rallied together to defeat Napoleonic France's bid for European hegemony. The miracle of the '90s has been the dog that didn't bark: Where is the opposition, where are the coalitions of second-rank states rising to challenge Pax Americana...