How is a clock able to keep accurate time? Besides being a convenience
for everyday life, accurate time keeping is necessary for accurate
navigation across an ocean. That means accurate time keeping was
necessary for the navigation of Columbus or others of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Accurate time keeping was a prerequisite
for the trade that changed both Europe and the Americas. What
is so special about a simple harmonic oscillator that makes it
important in time keeping?
