447
New York teachers stunned to learn some students can’t read time on old clocks after phone ban comes into play
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
447 points (97.1% liked)
News
36457 readers
2611 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The poor sods probably think time is quantized. But that's philosophically impossible, because that means time is like frames in a movie, but if time consist of a series of still frames, how do we get from one point in time to the next, and how do particles remember their direction or frequency?
Ergo time must be linear, but that too is philosophically impossible, because that creates problems with infinities. Meaning the theory of time must be incomplete as infinity is considered to be outside the valid range of a physics theory.
So time can be neither quantized or linear, but what other options are there?
I'll just have to acknowledge that just as Socrates realized, all I know is that I know nothing. I'm just very very confused, just like those students are over an old analogue clock.
Our theory of time (more specifically spacetime) is incomplete. Some theory's suggest it is a continuum while others suggest it is quantised. But as this discrepancy applies only at the Planck scale it is somewhat moot to how we experience time: our experience of time is linear and continuous. However clock is necessarily quantised but that is simply because it measures the passage of time in discrete steps. A clock is not time itself.
Absolutely.
Except if time is an emerging property of causality, then maybe it kind of is. Since all clocks are based on the causality that causes time to exist.
I love this take because it's the kind of thing only a handful of teenagers would ever think about, let alone understand, yet it speaks to an effect that underlies them all.
It's the kind of thing I'd say and people would go, "You're overthinking it." No, no if anything, you're underthinking it. Just because the idea doesn't occur to someone else doesn't mean it's not a valid extension of the thought. So it is here, with a train of thought that deviates from expectation, but that leaves one pondering nonetheless.
Time is a funny thing. If current theory holds through, it means that a photon traveling at the speed of light experiences everything in the same instant. It makes looking up at ancient stars feel all the more incredible, thinking that the photon that hits your retina already "experienced" that moment when it was first emitted millions of years ago.
I never thought of it that way, but yes that must be the logical conclusion. Time is indeed a funny thing, but when I think of it as causality, it kind of makes sense.