Читать книгу Information Wants to Be Shared - Joshua Gans - Страница 5

In 1905, a then obscure Swiss patent examiner published a paper that revolutionized physics. The paper’s motivating issue was how to observe simultaneous events. As it turned out, the issue of simultaneity and, indeed, how to guarantee that two events were observed at the same time had perplexed many, none more than those in charge of running railroads. In the decades previous, many collisions could be traced back to scheduling problems and a lack of consistency in the time registered by clocks in different locations. And as engineers and inventors struggled to work out ways of synchronizing the clocks in different locations, they filed patents with their designs and proposed solutions. It is entirely plausible that for young Albert Einstein—the patent examiner in question—the patent office job was not merely a way of keeping him employed but a source of inspiration. ^[1]

The surge in demand for information about “the time” had occurred because of the increased interconnectivity of locations worldwide. Time was no longer something required solely for local schedules. Instead, information on the time needed to be shared internationally. The problem that confronted Einstein and others was how to secure agreement on what the time was. One central clock holding the time could do the trick, but they did not want a monopoly on timekeeping, especially since that clock might fail. So Einstein worried about how to garner that agreement and, as he worked out how information about the timing of events could be shared, he realized that time itself was essentially a matter of perspective.

The story of time is one of shared information. Information on the time is of little value if only one person knows it. And for that reason, unlike other bits of important information, it does not seem to occur to people to keep time to themselves. Perhaps that is why we so freely give the time when someone on the street asks us for it.

But this same story tells us that a lack of technology to enable sharing can impede it. The innovations at the turn of the twentieth century enabled sharing that allowed for worldwide coordination. Einstein may have demonstrated that, at some fundamental level, the technology would never get there, but for all practical, earthbound processes, shared time became a reality. ^[2]