Sailors and Their Big Time Balls By Kris Jackson

On the last day of 1907, a crowd gathered in New York City's Times Square. They were there to witness a special event which continues to this day. For this was the first time the New Year's Eve Ball on the flagpole atop One Times Square was dropped to bring in the new year. But long before this became an annual event, other "time balls" around the world were in use daily to announce the local time.

The idea for dropping a ball to signal an exact time was first suggested by Royal Navy Captain Robert Wauchope in 1818. Like all sailors he relied on the accuracy of his ship's chronograph to keep time for navigation purposes. So naturally it was helpful to have an accurate reference to occasionally check the chronograph.

Captain Wauchope's suggestion was to have a ball dropped down a pole at a certain time every day. The pole would be mounted high enough for the ball drop to be seen by ships in the harbor. Like most large organizations, the British Admiralty moved slowly and it wasn't until 1829, that the first time ball was installed at Portsmouth England. And despite its success, it was another four years before the second time ball was installed atop England's Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Although the original wooden ball used at Greenwich was replaced by an aluminum version in 1919, the tradition was left unchanged. So every day (barring high winds) at precisely one o'clock the bright red Greenwich Time Ball drops. And unlike the Times Square Ball, but like other true time balls, the time is signaled when the ball is released, not when it reaches the bottom of the pole.

The British Navy wasn't the only military force which liked Captain Wauchope's idea. In 1830, Wauchope wrote the United States Government and suggested they too could benefit from the use of time balls. But much like the Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy was slow to act on the idea.

The U.S. Naval Observatory, which was built in 1844, had the responsibility for maintaining the accuracy of the Navy's chronometers. At the instruction of the Secretary of the Navy, the first American time ball was installed atop the Observatory in 1845. The time ball was dropped daily at Noon for the benefit of the ships in the Potomac River as well as Washington's citizens.

Later, with the spread of the telegraph, the Observatory was able to transmit the accurate time across the country. It also connected to other observatories to help refine the measurement of longitude.

As technology created the means to provide instant communication over a wide area, time balls lost their value. From the first radio time signal generated in 1904 to the satellite signals provided by the Naval Observatory today, access to accurate time is everywhere. And with the Observatory's system of atomic clocks, the most demanding needs for accuracy can be met. Its current generation of clocks will lose or gain no more than one second in 30 million years.

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