A time ball is a now obsolete time signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators to verify their marine chronometers from their ships offshore. Accurate timekeeping is one means by which longitude can be determined at sea.
Read more about Time Ball: History, Time Balls Around The World
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or ball:
“There was a time when the average reader read a novel simply for the moral he could get out of it, and however naïve that may have been, it was a good deal less naïve than some of the limited objectives he has now. Today novels are considered to be entirely concerned with the social or economic or psychological forces that they will by necessity exhibit, or with those details of daily life that are for the good novelist only means to some deeper end.”
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