Gregg Phillips posted link to the Army's 2009 Tactics to CounterInsurgency
(armypubs.army.mil)
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Big section on T..E Lawrence, which made me doubletake.
I read a book decades ago, which was of French origin, that said that Lawrence was a faggot and a cross-dresser (their words). Mkay.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I'm more familiar with the saying as "a stopped clock is right twice a day", which is obviously correct for a standard 12 hour analog clock (with a possible exception involving leap-seconds).
What I would consider to be the key insight is that, if you have two clocks running at (different) constant speeds, τ, ω, then the difference between them also changes at a constant rate, |τ−ω|. It follows immediately that, if the first clock is correct and working properly, then τ=1, and the difference of the other from the correct time, t, is given by |1−ω|t.
Since clocks are periodic, if the broken clock is correct at t=0, it will also show the correct time at any t such that |1−ω|t=(12hours)×k, or t=(12hours)×k|1−ω| (for k∈Z). The period of that, T, is clearly given by T=12hours|1−ω|, and, since ω can be made as close as you choose to 1, T can be made as close to ∞ as you wish.
That also makes intuitive sense. If a clock loses or gains time very slowly - say a second per year - then it also takes a very long time for that error to be noticeable, and a much, much longer time before that error accumulates to be 12 hours.
Meanwhile, a clock that's running at a high enough speed (forward or backward) will display every time multiple times per second, including the correct time, so, at least in theory, for any short, finite time interval, δt, you can describe a clock that runs continuously at a fixed speed, is correct at some instant during the interval [t,δt) for any time t, and which is completely useless in practice.
Found the horologist. ⌚
This is a great example of, "He ain't wrong, but he ain't in 'reality'."
He found a way to be correct, but nobody else in society is thinking it or accepting it.
I equate it to my frens that are always bringing up the UCC code laws, and telling us of that one special person or "clock" that doesn't pay taxes because of legal fictions and whatever.
That's great. But for the rest of us, try that shit and end up in jail.
Everybody is always looking for loopholes, and you'll find them eventually. But just because you find them, doesn't mean society will participate.