Comments on: Simple Time-Telling: Time Balls

By: Sussie

Sussie — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:04:00 +0000

u cool

By: Chris Higgins

Chris Higgins — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:23:00 +0000

@ACute – FWIW the online sources I looked at claimed that “dropping the ball” does indeed refer to sports such as American football in which dropping the ball stops play.

@cangel – Not sure. I bet it does! There’s a bunch of cool stuff at the Greenwich observatory — look it up on Wikipedia. See, for example, the Shepherd’s Clock.

By: cangel

cangel — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:15:54 +0000

Thank you for the bit of history. I had never heard of the time balls. What an interesting concept. Does the one in Greenwich still work? I am going to look into this a bit more. It would be interesting to have a ball drop in each major city. It would attract tourists like the Times Square one does.

By: ACute Angle

ACute Angle — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:53:42 +0000

Re: the astronomers – And here I always thought that the old “dropping the ball” euphemism came from a sports reference. Now I see, it’s astronomers.