The conundrum is that time doesn’t exist; it is a metaphysical concept in our heads. And, I’m not kidding.
TIME? You cannot touch it, feel it, taste it, smell it, or hear it; yet, you feel you are immersed in it. You cannot pull it from the universe; you cannot measure it. What you see on a clock is not time. It is a time interval—how many hours and minutes from midnight, for example, or how many years from the birth of Christ (2022 AD).
How Official Time Came To Be
The following is a taste from my new book: TIME & ETERNITY, THE END-TIMES AND BEYOND REVEALED. I will share a piece of my fascinating personal story of how official time came to be—in layperson’s terms.
Tick-tock goes the clock, and the business of counting the ticks must be the most boring job. Yet, measuring the time interval between ticks has been my career for some 62 years, and it has been far from boring. In fact, it’s been totally fascinating—measuring the time between ticks! A different kind of tick–you hope for a very long time-interval between when you have wood ticks on you from going into the mountains.
Best Definition of Time
The best definition of time I know of is one from my very good friend, Chauncey C. Riddle, who has written the foreword for both of my books and is an emeritus professor of philosophy, “Time seems to be the possibility of change”. This definition is particularly interesting to me because my master’s thesis shares how to optimally measure the change in the time between ticks for atomic clocks, and, in principle, for any timing device.
The fascinating thing is that the accuracy of time-interval has improved by over a billion-fold in my lifetime of 86 years, and it has been far from boring to be part of these amazing advancements. GPS is a far-reaching example.
I believe the Lord gave me the AT-1 time-scale algorithm back in 1968 when I had the responsibility to generate time for the nation (USA), and I thank the Lord for it. Atomic clocks were relatively new and how to characterize them and how to best use them for timing came out of my master’s thesis three years earlier, which I feel the Lord gave me as well.
AT-1 Features
The AT-1 algorithm has some very unique features. Its computed output time is always better than the best clock in the contributing ensemble, and even the worst clock contributes. The readings of all the clocks are optimally combined to provide optimum performance for the output.
The short-term and long-term performance of each clock has a different noise signature. This is accommodated by having a unique filter for each clock optimally estimating both the time and frequency (clock rate) for each at each measurement cycle.
Like with artificial intelligence (AI), AT-1 senses any changes in performance, and each clock’s weighting factor is updated appropriately at each measurement cycle. Any mal-performance is detected in any clock at each measurement cycle, as well, to avoid any degradation in the algorithm’s optimum output, and that clock’s issues are dealt with appropriately.
AT-1 Time-scale Algorithm
With the success of the AT-1 time-scale algorithm, we sponsored the first International Time-Scale Algorithm Symposium. After I retired from the lab in 1992, Patrizia Tavella from Italy’s timing center in Torino took over this symposium. Several countries have shown an interest in the AT-1 algorithm, and I have helped those requesting its implementation; the last one was the State of Israel’s atomic clock system–working with the outstanding folks at NPLI (National Physical Laboratory in Israel).
Dr. Michael Granveaud came to Boulder early on to work with me regarding AT-1, and he went back to Paris and wrote the ALGOS algorithm, which has similar features to AT-1, for the generation of international official world time, which used to be called GMT. In 1972, its name was changed to Universal Time Coordinated. UTC is composed of more than 400 atomic clocks from around the world.
This UTC ensemble of atomic clocks is also calibrated with the world’s primary cesium-beam frequency standards to assure that the UTC “second” agrees with the definition—9,192,631,770 cycles of the photon associated with the ground state transition in the cesium-133 atom.
When I used to send the NBS/NIST frequency calibration value to the BIPM (International Bureau of Weights and Measures), where UTC is generated, I had to correct it by 18 ns/day—due to the relativistic correction needed because of Boulder, Colorado’s, elevation. An ns (nanosecond) is a billionth of a second. Our clocks run faster in Boulder!
The Tell You What Time It Was
Patrizia is a dear friend, and she and her two beautiful daughters came and visited us one time in Fountain Green, Utah. Patrizia became the head of the time-services group at the BIPM, where they generate UTC. They put out a monthly bulletin, and my joke is, “They tell you what time it was!” We wrote a paper sharing how one could have a “real-time” UTC. AT-1 is a “real-time” system—which tells you what time it is!
Working on Time
For several years of my 32 years working in Boulder, I was one of the USA representatives for the BIPM/CCDS (Consultative Committee for the Definition of the Second). Now it is called the Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency (CCTF). I recently learned from Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Donley, the Division Chief for the Time and Frequency Division at NIST in Boulder, CO, where I used to work, that Patrizia had asked Liz to chair a new subcommittee for the CCTF on time-scale algorithms.
It seems we have come full circle since I wrote AT-1 fifty-four years ago. I just sent Liz, who is also a dear friend, several of the old view graphs that I used to use as I went around the world telling people about AT-1—in hopes that they might help her in her work with this new subcommittee on-time scale algorithms.
How AT-1 Generates Time
Now, for those of you who have the stomach for it, I can explain in layperson’s terms how AT-1 generates time, as a fictitious software clock. And with suggestions and several improvements by my outstanding colleagues, it is still fictitiously ticking today, for the US of A. When I used to give lectures about AT-1, I would say, “Every clock is wrong; the only clock that is right is the one you define to be correct.”
So, by definition, AT-1 is the only correct clock for the USA, as the computer calculates optimum algorithmic time. If clocks had souls, each one in the USA would desire to be as close in time as it could to AT-1’s time, UTC(NIST).
Why is Every Clock Wrong?
Also, every clock’s reading is wrong because of noise and systematics that affect every clock. By characterizing the noise and systematics for each clock, we can then optimally predict AT-1’s time using that clock to do so. Now, clocks are like people; everyone is different. We can then ask the question—knowing the noise characteristics and its systematic deviations—how well can we predict the time of AT-1 with that clock?
That prediction error can be used to design a weighting factor for each clock in the ensemble contributing to AT-1’s time. If those weighting factors are optimized based on the performance of each clock, then AT-1’s timing and clock rate performance will be optimized, as a logical consequence.
The Best Time In Your Life
Furthermore, if we use artificial intelligence (AI) to sense changes in behavior that may occur over time, then artificial intelligence allows AT-1 to continually breathe toward optimum performance with each measurement cycle.
‘Voila’, we have an optimized time-scale algorithm that will always be better than the best clock contributing. And, as new and better clocks become available for the ensemble, the AT-1 algorithm optimally accommodates them with its output always being better than the best. The performance of atomic clocks seems to be improving without limit. So now, you have the BEST TIME IN YOUR LIFE! And, you didn’t even know it!
We Were Doing Our Job
I have received many awards for my work over the years. But my thoughts go to Tom Hanks’s lines in the movie “Sully,” where Clint Eastwood does an incredible job of documenting Flight 1549’s forced water landing on the Hudson River on the 15th of January, 2009. Captain Sullenberger, following a bird strike–taking out both engines—miraculously landed the Air Bus on the Hudson River.
He was made a hero as all 155 people on board survived and very few were injured. Tom Hanks, acting for Sully, says, “I don’t feel like a hero… We were a team.” He tells his co-pilot, “We were doing our job!” That is how I have felt over my career path and still feel. I love to use my time and talents to serve to always, hopefully, make the world a better place.
God Is Good
The Lord has blessed me greatly in my efforts to do so, and I am incredibly thankful to Him and to the wonderful people with whom I have been privileged to work, and for the support, I have received from my wonderful family and friends. God is good; sooooooooo good. His perfect and infinite love for each of us is manifest in every direction—most especially with the gift of His Beloved Son, who perfected the Father’s perfect plan of happiness with His infinite atonement.
Where We Are in God’s Time
In my new book, I discuss the great importance of knowing where we are in God’s TIME, which is not the human-kind of time—like AT-1. We live in the most exciting time in the history of the earth, as we live in the “End-times.” And we have the fascinating prophecy, “…that there should be time no longer” (Rev. 10:6).
I explain the great significance of that prophecy in my book, as we move forward in God’s TIME, “One-eternal-round,” and a grand celestial chiasmus. I hope you will join me to know the Lord, and His infinite love for each of us, and His timing!
Now that you know that you live in the “best time” ever, use it to be Christ-centered–to live and share His message of gladness as we prepare for His Glorious Second Coming. With that hope in our hearts, we don’t have to fear tomorrow, as the world spirals down in wickedness. Trusting in Him and doing His will makes all the difference.
David W. Allan