The Ticking of Clocks

I often sit on the couch in the living room and read.  When I’m reading there, I’ve got no music playing, and the television is dark, and often the only sound I hear is the ticking of the clocks.

Two clocks can be heard from that couch.

One night, I tried to get their ticks and tocks (every second, clockwork) to line up.  They’re both battery powered.  I took the batteries from one, re-inserted them, took them out, inserted them again, until finally the ticks seemed to tick in time, and the rhythm of their tocks matched.

I was pleased.

The next night, the clocks were asymetrical in their ticking and tocking.  One ticks, the other ticks, one tocks, the other tocks.  There’s a certain rhythm to it, but it’s not a clockwork rhythm.  It’s something else, only vaguely related.

Weeks later, this night, the clocks combined their beats once again, albeit not quite exactly.  As one tick finished, the other began, and a fraction of a second later there’d be the first tock and its echo.  Almost, but not quite, identical.

Time, as presented by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, of which I do not pretend to have a firm grasp, suggests time moves differently as you move further from the earth, as the strength of the gravitational pull shifts.  Assuming the batteries of both clocks are working batteries, and the time these machines tell is accurate, then perhaps the fact that one clock is clearly a foot and a half higher than the other (though on opposite ends of the house, and indeed in different rooms) provides further evidence for Einstein’s theory.

Obviously, my thoughts strayed somewhat from what I was reading.