What If There Weren't Any Clocks to Watch?

摘要

Three centuries a Dutch mathematician named Christiaan Huygens invented a new religion. He didn't mean to. All he did was build a pendulum clock that allowed people, for the first time in history, to keep track of hours and minutes accurately. But over the decades, this power attracted millions of followers. In the 1850s, people started strapping clocks around their wrists. Then came the school bell and, with the Industrial Revolution, the punch clock for shift workers and the standardization of time zones for the railroads. Now the idol of the West, the clock hangs in nearly every office. Its worshipers look into its face several times a day, waiting for signs that it is time to go to work, to eat, to sleep.