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:
“Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels it who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)