Man & Time J B Priestley

By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

• April 11, 2007

Antiquorum, the specialized watch auctioneer, is hoping to open a new “collecting front” with a two-day themed sale, Omegamania, featuring Omega watches, which starts Saturday in Geneva.

“Traditionally, collectors have focused on brands like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Breguet, because they offer great complications, beautiful designs and have limited editions that make them rarer,” said Osvaldo Patrizzi, the chairman and chief executive of Antiquorum. “What we’re hoping to show with this sale is that Omega has the same breadth of quality and history.”

Auction prices for Rolex watches last year rose an average of 30 to 35 percent, while prices for Patek Philippe pieces rose 10 to 15 percent from an already high base. That is starting to put them beyond the reach of some would-be collectors, opening up a market niche for a brand that has not yet caught the wave, Patrizzi said.

“This sale should put Omega back in its natural position vis-à-vis other brands,” he said. “In my view there is no difference from a technology or solidity point of view between Omega and Rolex.

“Omega, with its Master series, parallels the same concepts, producing similar models, sometimes before and sometimes following Rolex,” he said. For example, the anti-magnetic Railmaster, designed to cope with the huge magnetic fields generated by big electric motors, was introduced in 1957, ahead of its rival the Rolex Milgauss; and the Omega Masters series started with the water-resistant, self-winding Seamaster in 1948, ahead of the 1950 Rolex Tourn-o-Graph, with which it shares many characteristics, and the 1953 Submariner.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, as swaths of the Swiss watch industry were mown down by financial crisis and competition from Japanese quartz-and-battery-driven imports, Rolex took the upper hand, holding firm to its positioning at the high end of the luxury market while Omega made a strategic decision to survive by switching to lower cost electronic movements.

In 1974, Omega produced the Marine Chronometer – still the most precise quartz wristwatch in the world, a claim verified in competitions organized by the Kew and Geneva observatories, Patrizzi said.

But when the market for mechanical watches returned in the mid-1980s, Omega was 10 years off the pace. Also, said John Ireland, a watch enthusiast and Rolex fan, Omega “lost its way in terms of exterior design in the seventies.”

“Omega was making good watches mechanically but started putting them in ugly cases,” Ireland said. “That hurt them exactly when electric watches finally were taking off.”

Antiquorum hopes that the Omegamania auction will refocus attention on the brand’s historical strengths, especially its award-winning precision watches, which include its first minute-repeating wristwatch, produced in 1892, and its innovative coaxial central tourbillon watch, with hands printed on revolving sapphire disks, introduced in 1994.

The auction will feature rare pocket watches, prize-winning chronometers, military watches from World War I and World War II, and some of the earliest diving watches and Olympic timers. It will also include space-certified models from a batch of 35 that went to the Mir space station in 1993-94, and an “Alaska project” prototype, from 1973, designed to withstand extreme cold on the dark side of the moon.

Sophie Tay, an avid watch collector, already owns several Omegas and is hoping to bid at Omegamania.

“I find the older Omegas very interesting,” Tay said. “They’re very intricate, and so much effort went into them. I think Omega is one of the real watchmakers.

“I’m very impressed by how well kept the watches offered in this sale are, because Omega watches tend to be worn in everyday life, and it’s rare to find watches in mint condition.”

While Omega has a long tradition of producing masculine watches, the auction will also offer some interesting pieces for women, including the Rocaille d’Or, a small watch extravagantly peppered with little gold nuggets, designed by the Geneva-based art jeweler Gilbert Albert in the late 1960s, and a diamond-and-platinum ring watch originally owned by the actress Ursula Andress.

“Omega is really one of the few brands that cover all the different fields of watch-making,” Claude Guelbert, special project manager at Omega, said. “We were always at the forefront of precision and design.”

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Duas observações para quem fala Português:

Complicações

No caso do Relógio Marie Antoinette, quando o site diz que é o quinto mais complicado, somos traídos pela origem latina da palavra, pois em Inglês quer dizer simplesmente que é o quinto em número de funções, pois complicação em linguagem de relojoeiro quer dizer função e não o que nós que falamos Português normalmente entendemos.

Veja as “complicações” que o relógio tem embutido e nas quais ele se meteu.

Basic watches will only tell time, but “complicated” watches will go beyond just telling time. Depending on movement type watch complications will vary and they are most often found on the bezel or the dial. An example of a complication would be a date aperture or a dial aperture. Secondary time dials, battery and power reserve indicators are also examples of complications.

Movimento (Movements)

No caso do Omega Seamaster, em que é dada ênfase para o “movimento”, novamente o latim nos trai, pois no caso movimento indica o mecanismo completo, o motor do relógio e não algum detalhe mecânico que poderia variar, ou algo assim.

Isso é particularmente importante se você for pesquisar em Inglês sobre como escolher um relógio a partir do seu funcionamento, pois as explicações serão a partir de como escolher um Movement Watch, quando nossa percepção linguística requereria que procurássemos como escolher um relógio a partir do seu mecanismo ou seu motor. Note-se que a escolha depende de outros fatores que analiso em separado na postagem Como Escolher um Relógio.  

Um relógio não é um relógio

Esta frase é contraditória, ou paradoxal, intencionalmente e para ser entendida podemos usar dois conceitos bastante difundidos, o da arte, a partir de Magritte e o da comunicação, usando os conceitos de Marshall McLuhan.  

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McLuhan explora a mídia como ambientes ativos em vez de sistemas passivos na sua função.

Para McLuhan, “‘figura’ se refere a algo que salta sobre nós, algo que chama nossa atenção, [enquanto] ‘pano de fundo’ se refere a algo que apóia ou contextualiza uma situação e geralmente é uma área de desatenção.”

Nada é o que parece

O que está em jogo aqui é a visão racional das coisas, que supõe a ciência como fonte de referência e a visão carregada da subjetividade acrescida de valores, que caracteriza a natureza humana. Como existe uma tendência para privilegiar a Ciência, vamos examinar esse contexto à luz de um dos mais famosos críticos do racionalismo:

Giambattista Vico propôs que a imaginação humana, não as circunstâncias do meio ambiente ou as inovações da tecnologia, moldou a cultura, o pensamento e as instituições humanas. Em suma, ele não aceitava que somente deveria valer a noção Cartesiana que René Descartes introduziu com seu método, preconizando que tudo deveria ser examinado a partir de uma objetividade racional, que deu origem à Ciência, ou ao positivismo,  versus o padrão dominante de pensar que é a subjetividade, que foi e é a característica do pensamento não científico. 

Em outras palavras, a objetividade baseia-se na precisão científica do exame da realidade que estamos inseridos e a subjetividade centra sua preocupação na questão do valor e significado dentro do contexto daquilo que é examinado.

A partir da introdução do positivismo ou pensamento científico, existe uma tendência de subordinar as Ciências Humanas às Ciências Físicas, que são definidas a partir de um “conhecimento de causas”, que argumenta que no caso do seu contexto, temos acesso a objetos ou fenômenos que não têm consciência de si mesmos e são os mesmos para qualquer observador, podendo por isso ser submetidos à experimentação e manipulação.

Em contrapartida, o pensamento humano “subjetivo” se transforma numa “caixa preta” para a ciência e tanto hoje como no tempo de Vico sendo vistos como sujeitos a caprichos e a ilusão, não obedecendo a regras ou leis fixas, exceto talvez àquelas que estão além ou escondidas da consciência como é o caso da psicanálise de Freud.

Quais são essas circunstâncias e aspectos científicos tecnológicos para relógios e medidores de tempo e como a imaginação humana os percebe? Não é a tecnologia em si que regula isso, mas o que pedimos que ela faça por nós que faz toda a diferença que são escolhas humanas.

O artefatos para medir tempo estão entre as coisas mais cartesianas e de maior utilização para o que a ciência faz, porém, também estão entre as coisas com maior carga de preocupação quanto a valor e significado em tudo que o ser humano criou e que inseriu e insere na sua cultura e no seu pensamento.

Examinemos os dois casos para o relógios e medidores de tempo.

Qual o papel objetivo dos relógios e medidores de tempo?

Quando você “seta” ou monta seu celular para ajudá-lo a ir para algum lugar, aparece o tempo que leva para chegar lá e as coordenadas de latitude e longitude de onde você está e para onde você irá.

Vamos transferir esse contexto para os astronautas, mais especificamente os da NASA e suas missões e a relação que eles tinham e têm com o tempo, sua marcação com relógios e medidores de tempo, especificamente com o relógio de pulso que usavam, o Omega Seamaster.

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De onde você sai, para onde volta, onde vai cair, segue esse esquema, igual ao nosso GPS quando procuramos endereço de carro, com a diferença que você viaja a alguns klm por hora e os astronautas viajam a milhares de quilômetros por hora, que significa que qualquer diferença de segundos, significa quilômetros de distância, que complica o resgate ou o socorro.

Esta imagem acima sintetiza o sistema de Navegação associado com tempo em utilização pela NASA já há 20 anos. No site da NASA encontra-se uma explicação mais detalhada e a dependência de um sistema de apoio espalhado pela Terra, que eles chamam de DSN pode ser vista no video. 

No vídeo eles informam que a precisão de relógios com movimentos mecânicos é de 3 segundos por dia. Na verdade a precisão do Omega Speedmaster que os astronautas usaram na missão Apolo é de -4 / + 6 segundos por dia, ou uma precisão de 99,99%, a maior precisão atingível por um movimento mecânico.  

Claro que o relógio de pulso é um complemento dos equipamentos que efetivamente regulam todo o processo, por razões óbvias, mas, neste caso, para que servem então? 

Como foi feita a seleção

From: The Watches That Went to the Moon

“It was so nebulous that people couldn’t tell what we were going to do with them,” he says. Ten companies were approached, but after reading NASA’s specifications, only four submitted watches for evaluation; three were selected.

Then began months of testing: vacuum, humidity, vibration, shock. In addition, Ragan gave samples of the three designs to the astronauts, asking which they preferred. After months of testing, only one met all of the requirements: the Omega Speedmaster chronograph. Ragan crossed his fingers, hoping it was the astronauts’ choice too. It was.

From: How the Speedmaster became the Moonwatch

October 24th 1964. That was only a month since the internal memo by Deke Slayton. Remember that it was an era without e-mail, so going back and forth with letters was already consuming quite a bit of time. To be sure, Ragan sent out his request for proposal to 10 different watch brands. Only four brands responded to NASA’s request, which were: Rolex, Longines-Wittnauer, Hamilton and Omega. Ragan still had to chuckle when he told this, but Hamilton sent a pocket watch instead of the chronograph wristwatch he asked for. Unbelievable.

The famous Valjoux 72 caliber movement powered both the Rolex and the Longines-Wittnauer. Omega’s Speedmaster, as you know, was powered by the caliber 321 movement. Omega’s enhanced version of the Lemania C27 CHRO 12 movement. For a long time, it wasn’t known which exact Rolex and Longines-Wittnauer were tested, but these records have been made public during one of our Speedy Tuesday events earlier this year. Longines-Wittnauer submitted their reference 235T, and Rolex sent their reference 6238 chronograph.

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The 105.003 had a new design regarding the hands, which were now white baton ones instead of the Alpha hands. The white baton hands were more legible.
This reference is the model that was tried and tested by NASA and got eventually qualified. Or ‘Flight Qualified for all Manned Space Missions’, as you see engraved in the case backs on later references.

11 Types of Tests

NASA designed a couple of tests for these watches, that weren’t meant to keep the watches in one part. These tests were designed to test the watches to destruction. In a relatively short period (of months), the following tests were performed on the watches:

1. High temperature: 48 hours at a temperature of 160°F (71°C) followed by 30 minutes at 200°F (93°C). This under a pressure of 5.5 psia (0.35 atm) and relative humidity not exceeding 15%.
2. Low temperature: Four hours at a temperature of 0°F (-18°C).T
3. emperature-Pressure: Chamber pressure maximum of 1.47 x 10-5 psia (10-6 atm) with temperature raised to 160°F (71°C). The temperature shall then be lowered to 0°F (-18°C) in 45 minutes and raised again to 160°F in 45 minutes. Fifteen more such cycles shall be completed. 
4. Relative humidity:A total time of 240 hours at temperatures varying between 68°F and 160°F (20°C and 71°C) in a relative humidity of at least 95%. The steam used must have a pH value between 6.5 and 7.5.
5. Oxygen atmosphere: The test item shall be placed in an atmosphere of 100% oxygen at a pressure of 5.5 psia (0.35 atm) for 48 hours. Performance outside of specification, tolerance, visible burning, creation of toxic gases, obnoxious odours, or deterioration of seals or lubricants shall constitute failure to pass this test. The ambient temperature shall be maintained at 160°F (71°C).
6. Shock:Six shocks of 40 Gs, each 11 milliseconds in duration, in six different directions.
7. Acceleration:The equipment shall be accelerated linearly from 1 G to 7.25 Gs within 333 seconds, along an axis parallel to the longitudinal spacecraft axis.
8. Decompression:Ninety minutes in a vacuum of 1.47 x 10-5 (10-6 atm) at a temperature of 160°F (71°C) and 30 minutes at 200°F (93°C).
9. High pressure:The equipment to be subjected to a pressure of 23.5 psia (1.6 atm) for a minimum period of one hour.
10. Vibration:Three cycles of 30 minutes (lateral, horizontal, vertical), the frequency of varying from 5 to 2,000 cps and back to 5 cps in 15 minutes. Average acceleration per impulse must be at least 8.8 Gs.
11. Acoustic noise:130 db over a frequency range of 40 to 10,000 Hz, duration 30 minutes.

Results

On March 1st 1965, the tests were completed. On June 1st 1965, the Omega Speedmaster 105.003 received the official qualification (not certification! A common misunderstanding, but NASA does not certify watches) for use during manned space missions. The other two brands failed (and stopped working during the test). The information that Petros Protopapas (Omega’s Head of Brand Heritage) showed during a Speedmaster event in Tokyo indicates that the Rolex 6238 failed the humidity test by completely stopping the movement and again it failed during the high-temperature test. The Longines-Wittnauer 235T failed the high-temperature test as well, as the crystal warped and disengaged.

The Moonwatch

So, the 105.003 is the Moonwatch? We are not entirely there yet. You should know that the Speedmaster 105.003 was in production for a long time, from 1964 till 1969. Meanwhile, Omega also introduced newer references, 105.012 and 145.012. NASA ordered their Speedmasters in four different batches, the last one in September 1968. The reason for this is that Omega introduced the newer caliber 861 movement for their Speedmaster chronographs. This would mean the rigorous tests needed to be performed all over again (which they did in 1978 for the Space Shuttle program).

The 105.012 and 145.012 had lyre lugs and crown guards as opposed to the straight-lugs Speedmaster 105.003. Also, the 105.012 and 145.012 had ‘Professional’ written on the dial. It is a common misunderstanding that ‘Professional’ was printed after the qualification on March 1st 1965. This is not the case. Already in 1964 Omega introduced the 105.012 with the ‘Professional’ word written on the dial.

Left: 105.012-66, Right: 105.003 (Photo credits: Rob from Denmark)

Speedmaster 105.012

For a long time, it was a mystery which references were exactly used during the Apollo 11 mission. Or whether a caliber 861 Speedmaster ever was on the moon.  In the meantime, a lot has changed, and Omega did great work together with NASA. For a few years, it is known that Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin wore a Speedmaster reference 105.012 – the first Speedmaster on the surface of the moon.

105.012-64

Legend has it that Neil Armstrong left his Speedmaster (also a 105.012) on board of the lunar module as the (Bulova) board clock malfunctioned. Aldrin’s watch later disappeared (in 1970), when it was sent off to the Smithsonian museum.

astronaut Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. during the lunar landing mission. The picture was taken by astronaut Neil A. Armstrong

Speedmaster 145.012

Michael Collins, who remained in the Command Module of the Apollo 11, was wearing a Speedmaster reference 145.012. So it did not make a trip to the surface of the Moon that first time. During the third mission where astronauts set foot on the Moon, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard was wearing the Omega Speedmaster 145.012. The 145.012 was in production from 1967 to 1969 and had a new design for its pushers. The pushers of the 145.012 were screwed into the case and had slightly larger caps. It is the last reference to have the column-wheel chronograph caliber 321 movement.

Speedmaster 145.012

Now, you would probably like to know the exact case numbers from the Speedmaster watches of Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins. From Aldrin, it is believed to be the Speedmaster 105.012-65. Armstrong’s watch was definitely a 105.012-65, and Collins was wearing the 145.012-68 (yes, a -68!!).

An Omega Speedmaster Professional 145.012-68, similar to what Michael Collins wore

The Third Moonwatch Reference

Very important: as mentioned earlier, the Speedmaster 105.003 was also issued to Apollo astronauts, as NASA had it in stock from the original procurement. On some of the six missions that had successful landings on the Moon, the 105.003 was also used by the astronauts. Below, the 105.003 as worn by Gene Cernan during his Apollo 17 mission in 1972: the Last Man on the Moon.

Moonwatch 50th Anniversary

Omega is known to celebrate things and often very properly! This year, Omega celebrates the 50th anniversary of their Moonwatch on several locations all over the globe. Our local event in Amsterdam was held on July 2nd, and we did a report here. But, what better way to celebrate the Moonwatch with two exceptional watches. A re-edition of the Speedmaster Professional Apollo XI 1969 BA145.022 and a new Speedmaster Professional in stainless steel and touches of (Moonshine) gold, based on the 105.012 case. We described both watches in detail on Fratello, click here for the Moonshine gold Speedmaster Professional (1014 pieces) and here for the stainless steel Apollo XI 50th anniversary edition (6969 pieces).

Of course, if you want something close to the Moonwatch, you need to go vintage. It is ranging from the 105.003 till the 105.12 and 145.012 references. These watches, in good condition, are becoming more challenging to find and make sure that you will do your homework. If you want a modern watch, that is close to the Moonwatch; you might want to read this article here.

Stick around this week, as we will have something very cool coming up this weekend for the Moon landing anniversary.

Also make sure to visit the official Omega website for more Moonwatch stories.

The astronauts, the Omega Seamaster and Omegamania

At the end of the day, what then is the use of a wrist watch, namely Omega Seamaster, what is it good for? Perhaps there are some hints at the Omegamania article.

There are two group of answers: How they are used objectivelly and how they are considered by those who use them subjectively.

Objectivelly

To set up routines

Because it takes 90 minutes to go around the earth, there are 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24 hours. … So even though we have sunrises and sunsets in space, you don’t want to set your watch or go to bed by them! Sleeping is a big issue for astronauts and they are monitored on that and the wrist watch plays a part on it.

Keep tracking

Astronauts have to pay attention to more than one watch or a time keeping device because they are required to keep track of multiple time zones. First, some astronauts might measure Mission Elapsed Time (MET), which actually is the time on board. Second, at the International Space Station, they will use the standard of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Third, there is also the time at Mission Control Center location time, which mostly has been in Houston Texas.  

As a sensor for monitoring

The black watches in this picture are part of an experiment called SLEEP. The experiment requires the astronaut wear a special watch, capable of “seeing” light/dark and sensing movement/no movement. Over time, astronauts upload the data from the watch to the ground investigators, using a laptop computer. These onboard/zero-gravity data are compared with data gathered on Earth pre- and post-flight. The scientists can then tell how well/long an astronaut slept during the nights throughout their time in orbit. (I averaged about 7 hrs, 20 minutes over 152 days). This data will lead to possible ways to increase/enhance an astronaut’s ability to get meaningful/restful sleep while in space.

Why they were not automatic neither quartz and resemble stopwatches?

First, chronograph style watches were used by American astronauts primarily because the space program in the United States initially had all astronauts recruited from the population of military test pilots. Chronograph watches, at the time, were the only style of wristwatch that could accurately gauge length of time with a stopwatch-like functionality. This is very important for test pilots, because it allowed them to gauge fuel consumption, and if necessary, to navigate using their chronograph watch, their heading, and airspeed. As a result, American astronauts were almost sure to bring chronograph watches with them when they went into space. Well before its official qualification, Wally Schirra, an astronaut who flew in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, took his personal Omega Speedmaster CK2998 on Mercury 8.

Second, the Omega Speedmaster, the famous “Moonwatch,” is mechanical because the technology for accurate quartz wristwatches did not exist in the early 1960s. The advent of advanced solid state electronics allowed Seiko to introduce the first quartz wristwatch, the Astron 35SQ, in December 1969 – five months after the Apollo 11 landing. Mechanical wristwatches need a high degree of craftsmanship to achieve reasonable accuracy, and so a solidly practical wristwatch of the era is and was an expensive timepiece. In addition, the timepiece needed to be functional under a punishing set of conditions, including at high and low temperatures, under rapidly cycling temperatures, under high levels of vibration, and in a vacuum. Very few wristwatches can meet those standards. In fact, the Omega Speedmaster was only one of three watches submitted to be approved for use in the space program, the others being from Longines and Rolex. The others failed. In the end it was only the Omega that was worn in the first American spacewalk in Gemini 4, and on the moon in Apollo 11.

The first Omega Speedmaster to the space and it’s fate

The best story: The 14 seconds that showed why you need reliable mechanical watches in space

The most gripping tale about the Speedmaster is probably how it helped to save the lives of the astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission, after an oxygen tank in its service module exploded, two days into the mission. “The astronauts had to do an exact 14-second burn of fuel,” says Ragan, in order to execute a manoeuvre that would let them manually guide the lunar module back to earth. With power shut down to conserve energy and the onboard clock not working, they timed the 14-second burn using an Omega chronograph. “It’s amazing to me. Had we not had it up there, they might not have got back.”

There are lots of accounts of this story, but this one fits it perfectly in more detail

The effect of all that

Omega value perception historically and as of 2021

I will try to figure out having in mind the notions Giambattista Vico, who proposed that human imagination, not environmental circumstances or technological innovations, shaped human culture, thought, and institutions. Obviously I will particularize the case of watches, i.e., wrist watches.

How Imagination affected Omega watches?

Whatever the effect sought after, the final product reflects it, i.e., what the industry produces, is what the imagination of the consumer public wants.
Obviously, that changes with time, and one of the most influential effects of imagination is the current fashion, which, besides imagination, suffers influence from the technological changes, specially in things like watches.

As of today, (2021)Omega belongs to a group called Swatch which encompasses the following brands: (See Groups of Watch makers in Switzerland)

You can have details about each one if ou go to The Swatch Group and press each of these squares. Besides that, if you scroll down, they have pointers which indicates:

• Production
• Electronic Systems
• Corporate
• Landmarks
• Distribution

Pressing each one of these will lead to an intricate network which lays the foundation of how they manage their business and craft. I call special atention in Landmarks to the Omega Museum.

There are interesting circumstances and contexts how they came about and why and how they set the targets of each of these brands, but before getting into that, as an example, let’s understand a little bit how Omega came about and where it stands:  

The History of Omega

Actual line (2021) of Models and their anatomy and specifications

This video is probably the best all around depiction of what is Omega today as of 2021. Since time is a problem (22 m) I will summarize it, but I strongly recommend to go through it:

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Design

Anatomy of a Watch

We have to understand, in the way the industry does, their product and how that molded its way of becoming and shaped the industry:

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The Best Watch in the world and the most expensive

It is generally accepted that the groups the watch industry serves are (under two basic movements, or engines, mechanical and electronic):

• Dress Watches
• Aviator/military/professional watches
• Dive watches
• Field/military watches
• Racing (chronograph & tachymeter(

There are watches which combine functions such as the speedmaster, that can be used either as Aviator, military, field and racing.

The question of “better” is confused with the price tag. If, for example, we take into account the Omegas and Rolexes, most are below $10,000. But there are models that go up to $20000 dollars. Effectively expensive watches can cost millions of dollars, as is the case of the one who opened this post, the Marie Antoinette, which is valued at 30 million dollars.

The price, or price range, refers to what is called positioning, which does not happen by chance, but is the result of a careful strategy that involves all phases from the creation to the sale and maintenance of watches and varies from time to time.

Positioning has little and sometimes even nothing to do with what the watch is primarily in itself, which is a time piece.

Positioning

I will present two contexts:

• A case study betwen Omega and Rolex
• Swiss watch industry and worldwide

Case Study

Omega and Rolex – case study of positioning

If you go to the Rolex site and look for their history, they will say that are pioneers and have 500 patents and that is it. If you check the question of the tests they are submitted to, the aspect of resisting high water depths stands out and the certification is of their own and not third party.

Omega is an entirely different story and it is no coincidence that they have been timing the Olympics since 1905, it is the choice of Britain’s Royal Flying Corps, which chose Omega watches in 1917 as its official timekeepers for its combat units, as did the U.S. Army in 1918.

More recently, it was the choice for the astronauts of the Apollo mission, as it can be seen in the introduction of this post, and today is the choice of NASA missions.

Rolex strategy as Return of Investment

How come then that generally Rolex is accepted as a better watch? If you see a review between the Omega Killer and the Rolex, even if it is biased towards the Omega, because at the end of the day it seems that it is an Omega sponsored thing, the general tone of the reviewer is that of difficulty to demonstrate the obvious which is that the Omega is by far better than the Rolex at the aspects Rolex stands out for. He knows that he is trying to change a long standing perception about Rolex and Omega and the title betrays it, because indirectly it recognizes Rolex as the reference, or the gold standard, when it should read, based on reality, : Can The Sea-Dweller compare to the Planet Ocean ?

This is due to the way Rolex positioned and positions itself and the false perception that the resistance to water pressure is the worst condition a watch has to endure, associated to a pattern of size of the dial, thickness and design that suggests utmost ruggedness which was not matched to reality under Nasa qualification tests. This associated with the aspect of value which is normally associated with jewelry watches, specially the dress ones closes the deal.

Perhaps, it is the positioning as an expensive watch which is it is the strongest point of their strategy. They woke up one generation before Omega in this regard and they consistently pressure their way up, what is a sort of warranty that you are making actually an investment. Nowadays their GMT master II series watches run in the $500 000 dollars bracket and some vintage Rolexes, such as the Paul Newman Daytona which was auctioned for $17.8 million dollars.

Omega is chasing after the loss with some offers on the Marie Antoinette line in the $250,000 range, plus some women’s watches in the $100,000 range.

Omega’s Limited Series

Omega’s basic strategy when they woke up, has been to focus on special series, such as the Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch Apollo 11 40th and 50th Anniversary, in the $100,000 dollars range, which actually lowers the price as it goes by:

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Omega made a special commemorative watch (250 pieces) with the Apollo-Soyuz mission at 12 o’clock on the dial.

To me it came as a surprise that Omegas are better than Rolexes, what I always took for granted as better. I could have had a Rolex instead of an Omega, as I did, for some 25 years, but I sort of have always rejected them because of their size, thickness, steel bracelet requirement and, to be honest, ugliness.

Incidentally, I would not buy the Omega Rolex killer either…

Swiss and worldwide watch industry

Bottom line: Mechanical Watches are winning the race, and the better ones are Swiss. When it comes to money, nobody beats them up… In terms of GDP per capita, they are only surpassed by countries which are actually tax heavens, although they are obviously perhaps the most famous tax heaven on earth… But it also rains in paradise as you can see at:

The Quartz Crisis

There is an interesting account of that at Wikipedia, which can be seen pressing above. There is another more simplified version, but interesting version, which deserves to be seen. Summarizing, visually, my take:

Although both articles attribute the almost monopoly of the Swiss watch industry to its neutrality in both wars, with more than 50% of the global market around 1970, I suspect that there are more reasons than that, but I will leave it aside. With the introduction of the Astron by Seiko in 1969, they took a plunge that made then in the next ten years to cut in half their production. 

The very first quartz watch was the Hamilton 600 and Bulova also preceded the Seyko:

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Last but not least

How to choose a wrist watch

Chuck Maddox

Tag Heuer

Groups of Watch Makers in Swtzerland, their brands and where they stand today, as of 2021

Roque Ehrhardt de Campos

Em algum momento entre 1964 e 65, quando eu tinha  pouco mais de 20 anos, me associei com um chileno e compramos em sociedade um posto de gasolina, aqui em Campinas, SP, onde nasci, cresci e moro até hoje.
Esse chileno, de quem eu era sócio, trouxe outro compatriota do Chile, Juan Navaja, que era talvez 20 anos mais velho que eu e supostamente também entrara na sociedade. O Chile estava amargando um período duríssimo de Allende, que queria socializar o nada que o Chile era e que seria o perfeito “nada para todos” que caracteriza a única possibilidade do comunismo…
Trabalhamos como mouros quase dois anos para perceber que aquilo ali era um conto do vigário, pois nosso sócio nos enganou.
Eu saí do negócio e Juan Navaja ficou literalmente no ar, saindo em seguida. Como ele morava com seu compatriota, mudou-se para uma pensão, sendo que os problemas básicos de sobrevivência, como ter onde ficar, comer, lavar e passar roupa, transformaram-se num pesadelo, pois ele viera para tentar fazer algum negócio e acabou perdendo todo seu dinheiro.
Juan era um homem extremamente fino e educado e muito bem preparado, Engenheiro por formação e profissão. Fiquei penalizado, e o trouxe para o ambiente da casa dos meus pais, até resolver alguma coisa.Ele ficou tão agradecido pelo meu gesto que mostrou-me uma carta do seu compatriota em que relatava com todas as letras que se juntara a mim apenas pelo dinheiro e pretendia me descartar. Acabou nos descartando aos dois e não nos devolveu o que investimos em espécie, mas sim, recebemos dois automóveis velhos, Um Ford 1935 e um Wolseley 1948 e algumas notas promissórias. Fiquei com o Wolseley e ele com o Ford.

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Os automóveis estavam em péssimo estado, e o meu, o Wolseley, nem funcionava. Era um carro inglês complicadíssimo, com tudo diferente do padrão das coisas que existiam por aqui.
Juan era muito habilidoso e literalmente construímos a peça que impedia o carro de andar na cozinha da casa de meus pais, para horror de minha mãe.O carro que era dele, o Ford 35, tinha um problema sério no estofamento e Juan teve a inusitada ideia de pintarmos a revolver (spray) o estofamento. Incrivelmente ficou bom.
Aquele período se caracterizou pelo que fizemos com as porcarias que recebemos do sócio malandro para recuperar o que havíamos colocado no negócio.
Finalmente Juan conseguiu do ex-sócio uma passagem de volta para o Chile e fui até Viracopos, que era internacional na época, e me despedi dele ali.
Nunca mais o vi ou conversamos.
Uns 30 anos depois, em 1995, eu estava trabalhando no Mercosul, e me vi em Santiago.
Com o fim de semana livre, procurei na lista telefônica e encontrei uma porção de Navajas, mas nenhum Juan.
Telefonei para um que me pareceu importante e era o Diretor da Volkswagen Chile, que estava se  instalando no país.
A secretária dele localizou Juan, que era parente distante do chefe dela, e ele estava morando em Viña Del Mar, o porto principal do Chile que fica a duas horas de Santiago. Telefonei, me identifiquei para a filha dele, que atendeu e se prontificou a me receber, me orientando como chegar.
No fim de semana, aluguei um carro e lá fui.
Não conheço Suécia, Dinamarca, Noruega, mas conheço Hamburgo, que é próximo destes lugares gelados e Viña Del mar é o perfeito ambiente nórdico, inclusive o gelo flutuando na água congelante, que é observável no mar que bate no porto de Santiago, no Inverno, estação que estávamos vivendo.
Logo que cheguei, vi um velhinho, que me pareceu entre 70 e 80 anos e quando me aproximei, reconheci o Juan que vivera comigo naquele período tão sofrido .
A experiência de tempo começa agora.
Fomos até a casa dele e a esposa, visivelmente preocupada, nos preparara uma mesa fantástica de café, pois que eu saíra cedo de Santiago e ainda não eram 9 horas e naquela região, o dia amanhece às 9.
Sentamos e começamos a conversar e, incrivelmente, nosso imaginário voltou completamente ao período da saída dele do Brasil.
Tudo que se referia àquele tempo, desde a peça que ele construiu para o Morris Wolseley, como ele lembrou, a pintura do estofamento, os problemas de cada uma das pessoas da época, enfim, uma quantidade de detalhes que parecia que tinha acabado de acontecer. O grau de detalhe que surgiu nesta conversa foi de arrepiar. Não só dele, como de mim também. Voltamos 30 anos atrás, como que tomados por um transe! 
Fomos interrompidos pela filha, que me submeteu a um verdadeiro questionário, pois este tempo que Juan passara no Brasil, era um mistério total para a família, como se ele ao se desligar da família no Chile, pudesse ter criado outra realidade aqui no Brasil. Conclui que o casamento dele também estivera em crise no período que esteve no Brasil e que a separação consertou a relação que se endireitou e suportou muitos anos até aquele momento. Essa minha aventura de ir procurá-lo tantos anos depois trouxe para a esposa a paz que nunca tivera após o período que ele se aventurou a deixar seu país e vir para o nosso.
Uma coisa incrível, aconteceu quando eu comecei a prestar atenção na casa dele, que era excelente e vi nas fotos penduradas Juan mais novo, nos anos 70, como eu o conheci, e nos anos 80 com o General Pinochet ao lado de vários bondes do tipo trolley que eu acabara de ver em Genebra, na Suíça, de onde eu viera para o Chile e onde eu fui várias vezes por causa dos negócios do Mercosul.
Achei aquilo estranhíssimo e perguntei o que significava aquilo.
Ele me tranquilizou que sua relação com Pinochet era puramente comercial, pois já se sabia que o General Pinochet era o que se viu.
O que aconteceu quando ele voltou do Brasil foi que Pinochet deu o golpe e decidiu trazer progresso ao país.
Um dos problemas graves era a falta de transporte público decente.
Isso aconteceu alguns anos após Juan ter voltado do Brasil. Pinochet assumiu o poder e liberalizou a economia. Dentro outras coisas, abriu uma concorrência, para trazer de Genebra e de outras cidades da Suíça uma geração de bondes trolleys que estavam sendo descontinuados para o Chile. Estes trolley buses iriam rodar por muito tempo até serem substituídos, pois Pinochet os havia conseguido a preço muito barato, mas precisava transportar, reformar, instalar, fazer funcionar e manter o serviço.
Juan, com o espírito aventureiro e sem limites que o caracterizava, entrou na concorrência e ganhou…
Eu estava simplesmente diante de um dos donos do transporte público de Santiago e de Valparaiso…

Juan, com a mesma habilidade que construira aquela peça do Morris e o fizera andar, reformara o Ford 1935,  recuperou os bondes suiços, montou tudo, fez funcionar e competentemente respondeu por uma parte dos serviços de transporte público de Santiago e Valparaíso…
Era um homem rico…
Nos despedimos, estupefatos, com a experiência de recordação daqueles amargos e difíceis tempos que passamos juntos e nunca mais nos vimos.
A filha não cabia em si e não conseguia esconder a alegria de espantar fantasmas do tempo que seu pai passara no Brasil.

Tenho certeza que aquele filme que passa diante de nós quando morremos, é exatamente o que aconteceu comigo naquele dia…

Segunda experiência

Eu fiquei nos Estados Unidos mais ou menos na década de 74 a 83, em várias viagens e permaneci a maior parte do tempo no interior do estado de N.York, mais precisamente em Endicott.
Chegamos na região em 77 e saímos de lá em Julho de 1983 em duas viagens e coincidiu com o período de meus filhos pequenos, pois eles nasceram em 70, 72 e 76.
Eles cresceram ali e, claro, eram companhias constantes para todos os lugares aonde íamos.
Em 1995, no mesmo ano que tive aquela experiência com Juan no Chile, resolvi passear em Endicott, junto com minha esposa.
Mais de 15 anos haviam se passado e a região é um conjunto de 3 ou 4 cidades, como se fosse Campinas, Valinhos, Vinhedo, Jundiaí, mas muito espalhado e relativamente difícil de andar sem conhecer.
Aluguei um carro em N.York e lá fui, arriscando a sorte.
Estávamos profundamente preocupados, pois lembramos que quando chegamos na região foi uma dificuldade até montar um mapa mental e andar à vontade, .
Quando se chega de NY, imediações de Endicott, na entrada da cidade, havia e ainda existe, uma padaria onde a gente quando viajava sempre parava cansado, faminto e com sede, principalmente com crianças.
Roma´s Bakery. Não vou esquecer o nome nunca.

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Paramos, entramos e a primeira surpresa foi encontrar tudo rigorosamente no mesmo lugar.
Era uma família de italianos e as pessoas de nossa época lá estavam, mais velhas, cercadas pelos seus filhos, talvez netos e netas, via-se o sangue na expressão facial e tudo, mas tudo, inclusive os tipos de sanduíche, que eles chamam de submarino nos Estados Unidos, estava lá, como conheceramos anos atrás.
Primeiro calafrio, eu pedi à seleção que eu gostava, minha mulher pediu a dela e tivemos ímpeto de pedir a dos meninos, pois tínhamos a sensação que eles iriam entrar correndo, como faziam sempre.
Sentamos lembrando da preocupação que os meninos, especialmente os dois menores, nos causavam, pois não alcançavam a mesa e se penduravam esperando alcançar o lanche e a bebida. Também tinham mania de assaltar a máquina automática de venda de doces e eu cheguei a levantar e ir olhar para ver se não estavam aprontando alguma tão intensa foi a lembrança. Vivemos um momento de 1978 em 1995…
A segunda surpresa foi mais sutil, pois pegamos o carro, eu fui automaticamente em todos os lugares que eu quis e ia tudo aparecendo como por mágica, pois o mapa mental havia ficado gravado no meu subconsciente e parecia que eu nunca havia saido de lá.
Aqueles americanos que nos olhavam como estranhos nunca poderiam entender a consternação que fomos tomados de reviver um período tão trabalhoso e tão grato de nossa vida ali naquele lugar….

Roque Ehrhardt de Campos

Sometime between 1964 and 65, when I was just over 20 years old, I associated myself with a Chilean and we bought a gas station in partnership, here in Campinas, SP, where I was born, grew up and still live today.
This Chilean, with whom I was a partner, brought another fellow countryman from Chile, Juan Navaja, (not his real name, because could easily be spotted in Chile) who was perhaps 20 years older than me and had supposedly joined the partnership as well. Chile was experiencing a very difficult period of Allende, who wanted to socialize the nothing that Chile was and that would be the perfect “nothing for everyone” that characterizes the only possibility of communism…
We worked like beavers for almost two years to realize that it was a trap, because our partner deceived us.
I got away from the business and Juan Navaja was literally up in the air, leaving soon after me. As he lived with his compatriot, he moved to a boarding house, and the basic problems of survival, such as having a place to stay, eat, washing and ironning clothes, etc., became a nightmare, as he came to Brazil to try doing some business and he ended losing all his money.
Juan was an extremely fine and educated man and very well prepared, an engineer by training and profession. I felt sorry for him, and brought him to my parents’ home environment, until he could move on something. He was so grateful for my gesture that he showed me a letter from his compatriot in which he reported unequivocally that he had joined with me just for the money and intended to discard me. He ended up dismissing both of us and didn’t give us back what we invested in cash, instead, he gave us two old cars, a 1935 Ford and a 1948 Wolseley and some promissory notes. I got the Wolseley and he got Ford.

The cars were in pretty bad shape, and mine, the Wolseley, didn’t even run. It was a very complicated English automobile, with everything different from the average standard of things that existed here in Brazil.
Juan was very skilled and we literally built the part that prevented the car from moving in my parents’ kitchen, much to my mother’s horror. His car, the Ford 35, had a serious upholstery problem and Juan had the unusual idea of painting the upholstery using a spray gun. It turned out incredibly good.
That period was characterized by what we did with the rubbish we received from the rogue partner to recover what we had put into the business.
Finally Juan got a ticket back to Chile from his former partner and I went to Viracopos, who was international airport at the time, and said goodbye to him there.

I never saw or talked to him again.
About 30 years later, in 1995, I was working at Mercosul, and found myself in Santiago, capital of Chile.
With the weekend free, I looked over the phone book and found a lot of Navajas, but no Juans.(His family is spread and wealthy and this is not his name)
I called one Navaja who seemed important to me and he was the Director of Volkswagen Chile, who was moving into the country.
His secretary located Juan, who was a distant relative of her boss, and he was living in Viña Del Mar, Chile’s main harbour, two hours away from Santiago. I phoned him, identified myself to his daughter, who was extremely nice and set up a meeting, telling me how to get there.
Over the weekend, I rented a car and went there.
I don’t know Sweden, Denmark, Norway, but I know Hamburg, which is close to these icy places and Viña Del mar is the perfect Nordic environment, including the ice floating in the freezing water, which is observable in the sea that hits the harbour of Santiago in the winter, the season we were living in.
As soon as I arrived, I saw an old man, who seemed to be between 70 and 80 years old, (I was at that time 50) and when I approached, I recognized the Juan who had lived with me in that very painful period.
The experience of time starts now.
We went to his house and his wife, visibly worried, had prepared us a fantastic breakfast, since I had left Santiago early and it was not yet 9 o’clock and in that region, the day starts at 9.
We sat down and started talking and, incredibly, our imagery completely went back to the period when he left Brazil.
Everything that referred to that time, from the piece he built for the Morris Wolseley, as he recalled, the Ford upholstery painting, the problems of each of the people of the time, in short, a number of details that sounded like it had just happened . The degree of detail that emerged in this conversation was chilling. Not only from him, but from me as well. We go back 30 years ago, as if in a trance!
We were interrupted by his daughter, who submitted me to a real questionnaire, as this time Juan spent in Brazil was a total mystery for the family. Apparently, they imagined that he could have created another reality here in Brazil by leaving his family in Chile. I concluded that his marriage was also in crisis during the period he was in Brazil and that the separation repaired the relationship that straightened out and endured for many years until that moment. This adventure of mine looking for him so many years later brought to his wife the peace she never had after the period he ventured to leave his country and come to ours.
An amazing thing happened when I started to pay attention to his house, which was excellent. I saw Juan younger as I had known him in the hanging photos, back in the 70s, with General Pinochet siding several trams similar to the trolleys I had just saw in Geneva, Switzerland, where I came from to Chile and where I went several times because of the Mercosur business I got involved with working for the government.
I found it very strange and asked what it meant.
He reassured me that his relationship with Pinochet were purely commercial, as it was already known that General Pinochet was what he was.
What happened when he returned from Brazil was that Pinochet staged a coup and decided to bring progress to the country.
One of the serious problems was the lack of decent public transportation.
This happened a few years after Juan returned from Brazil. Pinochet took over to rule the country and liberalized the economy. Among other things, he put up a bidding, to bring from Geneva and other cities in Switzerland a generation of trolley trams that were being discontinued for its use in Chile. These trolley buses would run for a long time before being replaced, as Pinochet had gotten them at a very cheap price, but it was needed to bring them from there, repair, install, run and maintain the service.
Juan, with the adventurous and limitless spirit that characterized him, entered the competition and won…
I was simply in front of one of the owners of the public transportation in Santiago and Valparaiso…

Juan, with the same skill which he hand built that part of the Morris and made it run, fixed the 1935 Ford, he rebuilt the Swiss trams, assembled everything, had them to run properly and competently was in charge of a part of the public transportation services of Santiago and Valparaíso…
He became a rich man…
We said goodbye, thunderstruck with the experience of remembering those bitter and difficult times we spent together and never saw each other again.
His daughter could not conceal her relief and could not hide the joy of scaring away ghosts of her father’s time in Brazil.

I’m sure that movie that passes before us when we die is exactly what happened to me that day…

Second experience

I stayed in the United States from mid seventies to early eighties, on several trips and spent most of the time upstate New York, more precisely in Endicott.
We arrived in the region in 75 and left in July 1983 on two trips and it coincided with the period of my children growing up, as they were born in 70, 72 and 76.
They grew up there and, of course, were constant companions wherever we went.
In 1995, the same year I had that experience with Juan in Chile, I decided to visit Endicott, with my wife.
More than 15 years had passed and the region is a group of 3 or 4 cities, as if it were Campinas, Valinhos, Vinhedo, Jundiaí, here in Brazil, where I live, but spread out and relatively difficult to get around without knowing where you are going.
I rented a car in New York and went there, taking my chance.
We were deeply concerned, as we remember that when we arrived in the region, it was difficult to put together a mental map and walk freely, .
When you arrive from NY, getting close to Endicott, at the entrance to the city, there was and still is, a bakery where we stoped, after a tiresome travel, hungry and thirsty, especially with children.
Roma´s Bakery. I will never forget the name.

We parked, got in and the first surprise was to find everything exactly in the same place.
It was a family of Italians and the people from our time were there, older, surrounded by their children, maybe grandchildren. You could see their blood on their facial expression and everything, but everything, including the types of sandwiches, which they call submarine in the United States, were there, as we knew years ago.
We chilled scared down after I asked the sandwich I liked, my wife asked hers and we had the impulse to ask something for the boys, because we had the feeling that they would run in, as they always did.
We sat down remembering the uneasiness we felt with the boys, especially the two younger ones, caused on us, as they did not reach the table and hung around waiting to reach a snack and a drink. They also had a habit of poking around the candy vending machine and I even got up and went to take a look and see if they weren’t up to something, so intense was the memory. We live a 1978 moment in 1995…
The second surprise was more subtle, as we took the car, I automatically went everywhere I wanted and everything appeared as if by magic, because the mental map had been engraved in my subconscious and it seemed that I had never left the place.
Those Americans who looked at us as strangers could never understand the dismay we were taken to relive such a laborious and grateful period of our life there in that place….   

Wikipedia has an excellent overall analysis of this problem, but it is perhaps a little complicated for the average reader, because it makes use of too much mathematical language which requires training. I minimize this inconvenience with another entry where I bring it down do common sense, at “God does not play dice with the Universe“.

I had a column in the local newspaper and wrote articles about the question of religion and science and obviously the time notion is basic to both, i.e., religion and science, although they are basically irreconcilable, or very difficult to talk to each other. 

Here I will discuss the same matter under the  scrutiny of literature and play writing.

My idea when I put myself together to create this site blog was to bring together ideas about time and its implications, especially in our notions about reality. But under the premises J B Priestley explained in this video and from which I stress his phrasing:  

What should a writer do? Well, I believe it is a writer’s job now is to try and understand the whole wide social scene, to understand what people are thinking, feeling, fearing, and hoping and then to express as vividly and dramatically as possible that understanding and those feelings. A writer now should speak for the people. I believe that after the war the young writers have a great opportunity.

With that in mind, the article I wrote and where I expose what to expect from Quantum physics is the following:

Schoerodinger’s Cat

I was not understood by readers, who despite PhDs have difficulty reading and understanding text, about my elaboration of why purely scientific reasoning does not satisfy metaphysical cogitations, especially those that religion seeks to solve.
I used as an example the mathematical reasoning for the pile of oranges and Einstein’s conception, which suggests the possibility of time travel. Taking into account that today Physics is struggling between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to explain reality, I will elaborate on what I consider inconvenient for Quantum Physics to understand the reality around us and how it is also inadequate. Unfortunately there is no text collegiate level, like Einstein’s, for Quantum Physics, and I ask readers for patience with my perhaps incompetent attempt to overcome the problem. The incompatibility of Quantum Physics as a possible interpreter of reality is summarized in Einstein’s phrase, “God does not play dice with the Universe“. But what did Einstein mean in his review after all? I use the Internet. As a premise, Quantum Mechanics is not reconciled with the language of everyday life and with our observation. It acts intuitively against our perception, including scientists and even its inventor, Max Planck, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 and Lutheran pastor from 1920 until his death in 1947. Whereas Relativity is concerned with big things, like the Universe , Quantum Physics is concerned with very, very small things, at the atomic level or less. I advocate that at its level things look like science fiction and do not belong to the real world as we see it, although there are experiments proving its effectiveness. Perhaps the substantiation of my criticism is that for Quantum Physics, there are states that can be different parallel universes, with different effects from the universe as we know it. For example, there may be a universe where dinosaurs are still around, or Kennedy has not yet been murdered. Or there may be universes where you exist but you are a different person (sic). The number of possibilities are infinite. Sounds absurd? but it is what named and respected physicists believe. There is even a so-called “correct” way of thinking quantumly among them, which is called the Copenhagen Interpretation. Basically it dispenses with the notion of cause and effect and denies causality legitimacy. The most common example to understand this reasoning is in a mental experiment called Schroedinger’s Cat. I quote it ipsis litteris to Wikipedia: Imagine a cat encased in a box, so that it is not only alive or just dead, but “living dead”. To stay alive, he is tied to a random event, for example a hammer that releases radiation harmful to the cat’s physical state. If the hammer falls, the cat dies, otherwise he lives. This intertwining (which is the phenomenon described), of which he may be “alive-dead”, is that, however, he is neither distinctly alive nor distinctly dead, is what the Copenhagen Interpretation seeks to elucidate. The experiment also thinks that all this happens with the box closed, because if it opens, the observation changes what is being observed. Let there be a clean diaper …. I apologize for the incursion, but whoever wants to use these ideas to discuss whether the Universe has some deterministic plan or everything is there and everything is left to chance, help yourself and it is the reason why I privileged Einsteins views.

What Einstein meant?

He wrote in a letter addressed to Max Born (one of the fathers of Quantum Mechanics) in 1926:

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it“

It is wrong, them, to interpret this quote assuming that Einstein was religious, believed in destiny, or rejected a core theory in physics.

In February 1954, just 14 months before he died, he wrote in a letter to the American physicist David Bohm: ‘If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us.’

A more detailed explanation and its implications more at level of the theory behind it can be seen at “God does not play dice with the Universe“.

Priestley became famous and a nationally known figure after his first play The Good Companions, which has had many productions which can be seen at Youtube.
This play was incorporated into English culture as Shakeaspeare plays and recently the National Theater presented a production of it.
If you don’t have time to see it, take a look at Wikipedia to find out what it is about.
For Lusophony, or Portuguese speaking persons, especially in Brazil, there are authors of the English language who are practically unknown, but who are extremely competent and to whom are reserved entire sections in bookstores, such a demand that exists from them on the part of those who speak English, but, despite this , they are simply not translated or known in Brazil or Portugal, or in other places where Portuguese is spoken. Priestley is one such case.

Priestley does not stand out for his books, although he wrote and edited them and even some were edited here in Brazil, but he stands out for his plays, especially for his treatment of time, which is unique and perhaps incomparable. He was greatly influenced by J.W.Dunne‘s concepts of time, especially those contained in his book An Experiment With Time. T.S. Elliot was also interested in Dunne and this is reflected in Burnt Norton , where the nature of time and salvation are discussed.

Priestley’s best-known play influenced by Dunne is Time and the Conways, , which originated many versions that can be seen on youtube. If you do not have time for this, see the explanation of the concept of time embedded in it.

I should remark that for one thing Dunne was right: Our conventional view of Time is wrong, but, I am sorry, premonitions leave me cold.

We all due respect to the good ideas J B Priestley deserves to be admired for, his infatuation with Gurdjieff and by extension to Oupensky, leaves a lot to be desired. It is wishfull thinking not to say, pardon me, crap.

Jung had it far better, and still suffers from the fact of still being crap and it is difficult and time consuming to know why.

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The 15 Most Creative, Mind-Bending Time Travel Movies Ever Made

 

It is, as I already said, an illusion.
How come then, that I can locate with my GPS an address in a place I’ve never been or recall about my dead relatives, or imagine my future grand children, or wait in the line to be vaccinated?
How can we establish this supported by solid notions, tested in the best way, that are within the best heads, without the use of complicated mathematical models or sophisticated notions of physics?
Everything is based on the relativity of time when contextualized in relation to light, or rather its speed.

I will develop here relativity as it stands and from where it came and separately I will try to do something equivalent to Quantum Mechanics and Time

Until Ole Roemer (1644-1710) found that eclipses to the moons of Jupiter occurred sixteen minutes earlier when Jupiter and the earth were on the same side of the sun than when on opposite sides, it was thought that light was instantaneous, what is obviously not correct after that observation.

His brilliant insight can be understood watching this video.

This discovery raised the question: what is then the speed of the earth trough the supposed ether which was believed to exist?
This belief was based in the fact that since light and heat reached the earth from the sun, it was assumed that some kind of medium existed to convey the waves, and it was called “ether”. This idea raised the problem that this medium needed to be real enough to convey waves, but thin enough to offer no resistance to the passage of a body through it. It also raised another problem: this “ether” permeated the whole universe uniformly everywhere, like a sea where everything plowed away, and then what was the actual speed of the earth relative to the universe and to all other moving bodies?
Our sun and the other stars appears to be rushing away as the universe expands and several observations confirmed that.
Although the distance between these systems appears to be growing gradually greater, if the ether is stationary, it would be possible to discover the directions and absolute motions could be calculated.

Obviously light passing through a current of ether would be either accelerated or slowed up if such a fluid medium did in fact exist to create a current, depending on which way the light was travelling.

From the investigations to find this out, the best succeeded was the one known as the Michelson-Morley Experiment, and it led Einstein in 1905 to formulate the first two principles of his Special Theory of Relativity.

The Michelson-Morley Experiment

What has been said is a bit obscure and with this explanation we can better understand what is at stake

Based on that, Einstein asserted that the velocity of light is always the same whether we measure this velocity from a system which is in motion or a system which is at rest.

The complete picture looks like that:

Explained in details as it is with more in deepth theory help

June 16, 1904

Change of time rhythm was, in my view, the great insight of James Joyce.
Another great insight of Joyce: to describe the common man, the anti hero, with his vicissitudes and mediocrity and petty problems of survival and not the opposite, which was the tradition of literature.
Ulysses takes much longer to read than the hours it reports.
Ulysses is difficult to read and has the fame of not being read although it is considered a masterpiece and mandatory text in school curricula. Joyce’s inability to achieve this, when he used the technique he used, is the price he paid to obtain other things, which, no matter what merit they have, cannot make the reading of it a fond memory as Priestley defines it.
This happens because of the narrative structure which we will discuss here.

Richard Ellmann and Ulysses narrative structure

In his introduction of his book about Joyce, Richard Ellmann tells us:

Joyce introduced a “whole galaxy of new devices and stances and verbal antics [that were] extravagant, derisive, savage, rollicking, tender and lyrical” (Joyce ix). For scholars and general readers alike, “the decipherment of obscurities” within this new literary galaxy “has gone on apace”; the meaning and significance of Joyce’s narrative techniques continue to be analyzed long after Joyce’s death. One of the areas of Ulysses that has often been overlooked, however, is that of the various functions played by the passage of time and awareness of time in the novel. A text that is ambitious both in its size and scope, the events of Ulysses actually unfold over the course of a single day: June 16, 1904. While many other traditional markers of organization and order were dispensed of by Joyce in Ulysses, there is an acute focus on the temporal setting of each major episode in the text, particularly in the first two parts of the novel, and this emphasis serves both critical narrative functions and affirms the psychological preoccupations that are at the thematic core of the novel.

As Ulysses opens, the narrator’s identity may be ambiguous, but the temporal setting of the scene and characters being described is not. While the narrator does not name the specific time of day, he does not need to do so; instead, he chooses to engage the reader and suggest the time of day by pointing out a variety of details that tell the reader the narrative begins in the morning. Buck Mulligan is introduced “bearing a bowl of lather…and a razor,” and “a yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air”. Even the mountains outside are described as “awaking”. On this first page of Ulysses, the reader feels immediately that he lacks orientation to many aspects of the setting. The characters have not been properly introduced according to the standard conventions of the novel, for instance, the physical location has not yet been identified, and the relationships among the characters have not been elucidated nor even suggested. The only certainty the reader can claim at this introductory point is that the time of day is morning.

Although it is Buck Mulligan who is shaving himself, the psychological importance of this quotidian morning ritual is emphasized when Buck passes his shaving mirror to Stephen Dedalus, saying “Look at yourself, you dreadful bard!” This is the first of many passages in which time will be used to underscore the psychological preoccupations of the central characters, particularly Stephen and, in Part II of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. Stephen does glance at himself in the mirror, and thinks, “Who chose this face for me?”. His answer, “This dogsbody to rid of vermin”, hints at Stephen’s rather gloomy view of himself, of the world he inhabits, and the relationship between the two. Stephen’s reaction of displeasure and even disgust to his own visage is an early indication of the characters’ profound sense of dissatisfaction with themselves and with their place in the world.

Just four years into the new century, there was a general sense that political, social, and economic stability would be achieved and that individuals would be able to benefit directly from such wider scale accomplishments (Rickard, 92). The social zeitgeist, Rickard remarked, was that which is typical of any turn of the century moment: a spirit of possibility, of hope, and of change, signifying a break with the difficulties and failings of the past. For the main characters in Ulysses, however, the frequent episodes of self-reflection, such as the one with Stephen gazing at himself in the shaving mirror, suggest that the spirit of possibility is not experienced pervasively by all members of a society. In many other moments of self-reflection, especially those experienced by Stephen and Leopold, the daily rituals associated with time only sharpen their feeling that they are somehow outside of that sphere of possibility. While other characters, such as the schoolmaster Mr. Deasy, can thrive and prosper, both economically and socially, Stephen and Leopold are representatives of that group of people who are suspended in limbo between an idealized past, an inadequate present, and an imagined future.

Two related episodes that convey Stephen’s acute sense of his inability to seize the fin-de-siecle moment and better himself occur just a few hours after his shaving mirror epiphany of self-loathing. Stephen, a teacher, arrives at school, where between even the briefest pauses between the history questions he asks and the responses the students offer, Stephen reflects upon what he refers to as “the daughters of memory”. Stephen describes time as “one livid final flame,” and asks himself rhetorically, “What’s left us then?” The dismal reverie is broken when a student responds to a question about where a battle occurred by answering not with the place, but with the year. This fact is significant because it underscores how much people use time to mark their place in the world and to understand their relationships to other people. In the classroom, as in the narrative, and as in life, there is little that makes sense, there is little that cohesive, but the concreteness of time helps, at the very least, to create some context. The history lesson he is trying to deliver to his students, somewhat ineptly, becomes a meditation for Stephen on the opportunities and ravages of time. “Time has branded [and fettered] them,” Stephen thinks, “[and] they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted”. Although he does not use a personal pronoun, Stephen himself clearly feels branded and fettered by time, unable to access the possibilities purported to be available, though the reader still does not know at this juncture what possibilities may even be of interest to Stephen.

The emphasis on time and related concepts continues before the class comes to a conclusion. When the students ask Stephen to tell them a story, he indulges their request by responding with a riddle: “The cock crew,/The sky was blue:/The bells in heaven/Were striking eleven./’Tis time for this poor soul/To go to heaven”. The students say they do not hear the riddle and ask for Stephen to repeat the riddle, which he does. They do not attempt to solve the riddle, though “[t]heir eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated”. One student, Cochrane, asks, “after a silence,” “What is it, sir? We give…up”. Stephen’s answer—“The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush”—is even more cryptic than the riddle itself, and the students spill out of the classroom as they hear a rap on the door and the invitation to go outside and play hockey. Although the narrator does not indulge in any further meditation on the significance of the riddle, Stephen’s ponderings about time and its effect on him are not yet over. The school day provides still another opportunity for the theme to be repeated and explored from yet another angle.

After teaching his class, Stephen is approached by one of his students, Cyril Sargent, who stays behind to discuss a math problem that has stymied him while the other students eagerly leave to play hockey. Stephen observes to himself that Cyril Sargent is “ugly and futile,” with a “lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail’s bed”. The repulsion Stephen feels as he looks at Cyril, who is portrayed as a shy and fragile young boy, is palpable, and yet, Stephen begins to recognize that “someone had loved [Cyril], borne him in her arms and in her heart…. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own”. The realization gives Stephen pause, leading him to ask himself, “Was that [a mother’s love] then real? The only true thing in life?”. It is only after he asks himself these questions that Stephen admits he identifies with Cyril Sargent, though he does not demonstrate a total ability to empathize with the boy. “Like him was I,” Stephen thinks, with “sloping shoulders, this gracelessness…. Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both of our hearts”.

The role time plays in this exchange between Stephen and his student is subtle, but it is vital to the development of the narrative and the psychological themes Joyce is exploring in Ulysses. There is the suggested, but unarticulated, gulf of time that separates young Cyril from the older Stephen, who himself is separated by age from other figures in his life, such as the paternalistic and patronizing Mr. Deasy and even Leopold Bloom. There is also, however, the notion that Stephen has no time to reflect at length upon the rhetorical questions he asked himself as he looked upon Cyril. As soon as Stephen thinks about the similar secrets that their hearts harbor, the sum is declared done—much as the riddle was articulated and then abandoned– and Stephen quickly dismisses Cyril, saying “You had better get your [hockey] stick and go out to the others”. From a psychoanalytic perspective, Stephen can not allow Cyril to remain at his side any longer, for to permit the student to do so would compel Stephen to ponder at length about his own ugliness, his secrets, his dissatisfaction, and his fears. The rapid dismissal of Cyril, along with Stephen’s condescending phrase, “It is very simple,” wards off uncomfortable thoughts, but permits the reader to intuit the thoughts and their importance to the overall development of the theme of Ulysses.

Stephen does not have to wait long, however, before he is confronted with another experience that compels him to reflect upon the passage of time and the dissatisfaction that he feels with his own life and its seemingly constricted possibilities. After dismissing Cyril, Stephen proceeds to the office of Mr. Deasy, the school’s administrator, who will dispense Stephen’s payment to him. In terms of actual time and the narrative function that the transition between his classroom and Mr. Deasy’s office performs, the scene in Mr. Deasy’s office marks mid-day. Stephen has finished with his teaching responsibilities for the day, and once he is paid, he will, the reader thinks, proceed to The Ship, a pub where he has agreed to meet Buck at “half twelve”.

Stephen appears to be deeply uncomfortable in Mr. Deasy’s presence, particularly because Mr. Deasy controls the length of their meeting, its content, and the narrative itself. “First, our little financial settlement,” Mr. Deasy says at the beginning of the meeting , taking his time to gather Stephen’s wages from a mechanized savings box, an important symbol representing the technological and ideological advances of the modern age. Mr. Deasy seems to represent normative social and economic progress, and Stephen’s recognition of Mr. Deasy’s power and apparent self-satisfaction makes him feel uncomfortable. Stephen notes the setting: “The same room and hour” as previous encounters with Mr. Deasy, and, he adds, “I the same. Three times now…. [N]ooses round me here”. Although Stephen thinks to himself that he could break the nooses “at will”, he shows no signs of doing so.

Stephen accepts his wages with “shy haste” and is eager to leave, but he is restrained from doing so by Mr. Deasy, who prevails upon Stephen to convey an editorial he has written to Stephen’s acquaintances at a local newspaper. As Mr. Deasy begins to type out the last portion of his editorial, Stephen looks at the framed pictures on the wall, noticing “images of vanished horses” and the date, 1866, stamped on the photographs. The way in which the narrator conveys Stephen’s impressions of the photographs suggests that the images that are depicted represent a past that is much more distant than just 42 years, and the subsequent exchange in which Mr. Deasy and Stephen engage similarly underscore just how temporally disoriented Stephen feels, both with his elders and his contemporaries. Mr. Deasy, who holds predictably antiquated views of money, religion, and history, is shocked by Stephen’s utterance, “History… is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” and his opinion that God is “a shout in the street”. Mr. Deasy concludes that he is happier than Stephen, but what the reader concludes is something far more profound and relevant: the gap between Mr. Deasy and Stephen is not merely a chronological generation gap; it is an ideological, social, and psychological gap that Stephen and a certain group of his contemporaries felt just after the turn of century in Dublin.

Among those contemporaries in Ulysses is the character Leopold Bloom. Throughout the course of the novel, the narrator, narrative voice, and focus on specific characters will change; however, even as these transitions occur, the emphasis on establishing the time at which the narrated event is happening—both the actual time and the context within a larger historical framework– is never diminished. Leopold Bloom is preoccupied with many of the same philosophical musings about time and possibility that plague Stephen Dedalus’s thoughts. This fact is not immediately evident, however. As Part II opens and Leopold is introduced, the reader notices a dramatic change in the narrative voice. The details that are offered by the narrator regarding the setting are both more precise and more exquisite than was the case in Part I; furthermore, the way in which Leopold is described portrays him as an individual who appears to have a happier constitution than Stephen.

Leopold is introduced while he is preparing a breakfast tray for his wife. His attention to the precise arrangement of the tray and the significance of the simplest, most mundane movements are detailed by the narrator, conveying a sense that Leopold is a man who derives more pleasure from his life than Stephen. The time to which the description of Leopold is devoted seems to suggest—somewhat deceptively—that Leopold Bloom is a man whose relationship with time is healthier and more positive than Stephen Dedalus’s relationship with time. The narrator details the kinds of foods Leopold enjoys “with relish” (Joyce 45). He describes in rich detail Leopold’s recognition of the cat, which he “watched curiously [and] kindly”. Leopold clearly enjoys the sight of the cat, which is described as “Clean to see”. She is more than pleasing to the eye, though. Leopold recognizes that although other people call cats stupid, “They understand what we say better than we understand them,” and they have the capacity for a range and depth of emotions that some of the characters can not summon up.

Time is established in Part II in much the same way as occurred in Part I. It is early morning on the same day, June 16, 1904, and again, it is not the time itself that is announced with the indication of an hour; instead, the narrator establishes the temporal setting by noting that “the sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church”. The rising of the sun provokes a pleasant stream-of-consciousness reflection from Leopold, but the reader soon learns that Leopold is as preoccupied by the passage of time and his seeming dislocation within time’s larger panorama than he initially appears. Following a beautiful young woman in the street—“Pleasant to see first thing in the morning,” he thinks to himself—he is quickly reminded of his age by the “sting of [her] disregard” for him. Just after this incident occurs, a cloud begins to obscure the sun, “slowly, wholly. Grey. Far”. The change in weather precipitates Leopold’s depressing and almost obsessive litany about death, which ends with the depressing finale, “Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken cunt of the world,” a thought which “seared his flesh”.

Leopold returns home, only to look upon his wife and “her bulk,” her breasts sagging “like a shegoat’s udder”. Other details in the scene—yesterday’s incense, for example—mark the division of time but also hint at how the passage of time wears away at one’s pleasure and sense of what is possible. One way in which time has affected Leopold is the degree to which he feels passion and love for his wife. He seems to find her unattractive and even repulsive. Perhaps he derives meaning in his life from her dependence upon him; perhaps he is simply anesthetized by routine. Discerning why he feels as he does, however, is not as important as noting what he feels. When his wife asks him what the word “metempsychosis” means, he replies “that we live after death”. The idea, he seems to suggest, is an attractive one, but living during life is challenging enough.

In fact, all of the evidence that the reader discerns suggests that Leopold is slowly dying before he has really achieved any true sense or purpose of meaning in his life. The kidney he enjoys eating so much is burning on the stove. After cutting away the kidney’s blackened exterior, eating the remains, and throwing the offal to his cat, Leopold begins preparing to dress for the funeral of an acquaintance. “A soft qualm [of] regret” courses “down his backbone, increasing”. Significantly, while using the bathroom, he thinks about the mundane exchanges he has with his wife—“Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I’m swelled after that cabbage”—and he rips a section of a story about a prizewinner out of the newspaper, wiping himself with it. Just as he does, the bells of the church ring out, and Leopold wonders what time the funeral is (Joyce 56). From this point forward, any vestiges of Leopold’s happy countenance have largely disappeared. The passage of time and the mark it has left—and is leaving—on Leopold is evident, not only to the reader, but to Leopold himself.

As was the case with Stephen, Leopold’s daily routine, is punctuated with numerous reminders that life just keeps ticking on and he is incapable of harnessing it for his true benefit. His wife orders him about as if he is her manservant. He raises the blind for her, he delivers her correspondence to the bed, tucking the letter under her pillow and asking “[Will] That do?” before returning to the kitchen to “Hurry up with that tea!” as his wife demands. When he returns, she complains about the length of his absence—“What a time you were!”—not, presumably, because she missed him, but because she wants to ask him a question. Leopold’s experience of the funeral is another event that provokes him to meditate on the aspects of life that are not so pleasant or tinged with a sense of opportunity and the hope of the future. During the service he thinks about the heart, that “seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump [that] [o]ne fine day gets bunged up; and there you are”. After the funeral, at noon, Leopold goes to the newspaper office, where he discusses an advertisement. An ad man, he is always interested in developing a new and more effective advertisement. In fact, it is in this section of the novel that the reader observes Leopold at his most enlivened—he moves with a quickness and awareness of time that is sharpened by his passion for advertising. Yet he is thwarted again; his creativity meets the resistance of his supervisor, who prefers a more traditional approach and tells Bloom to tell the advertiser “He can kiss my royal Irish arse”.

Leopold Bloom is often interpreted by literary scholars as a character who is more evolved than Stephen Dedalus—slightly older, striving more earnestly and with a greater sense of purpose, and still believing in his potentialities. Evidence is cited to support the claim, as was made above, that, at the very least, Bloom has a passion and seems to squeeze meaning out of it, while Dedalus is more aimless. Nonetheless, such an interpretation neglects the significance of the smaller details of Leopold’s daily life. Instead, literary analysts have tended to prefer the interpretation that Stephen is an angst-ridden young man seeking a father figure, albeit unconsciously, in Leopold Bloom. One of the few scholars to build an argument that Stephen and Leopold are more alike than they are different was Williams, who asserted that Leopold Bloom clearly exhibited symptoms of “hunger and anger” in response to the passage of time, both real and imagined. It is a hunger and anger that Williams describes as consumptive. There’s a constant reflection on the past—Leopold remembering a special moment with his wife—inability to live in/accept/re-shape the present—always desiring nostalgically to capture the past.

Stephen and Leopold are brought together in the carriage on the way to the funeral for their mutual acquaintance. Although both men, and their other companions in the carriage, commiserate lightly over their common difficulties related to age and the passage of time, they do not discuss these difficulties in a serious tone. Instead, they make jokes, only regaining their composure when they reflect on the fact that their deceased friend passed away unexpectedly and in the prime of his life. The sober moment does not prompt the men to be more intimate with one another and sharing their feelings, but once again the reader intuits the fact that whatever the larger zeitgeist of the turn of the century moment is, these men feel themselves to exist outside of it, so far outside, in fact, that it is not only impossible for them to seize and embody that spirit, but perhaps even to believe they should want to do so. Although the turn of the century offered new promise for society at large and certain segments of the population, each of these characters appears to be trapped within a predestined trajectory of his own life narrative.

What is interesting, however, is that Joyce, through the development of these characters and their psychological preoccupations with the passage of time—which they themselves feel acutely but are unable to articulate fully—was able to embody the turn of the century spirit that always facilitates the birth of new creative genres (Rickard 91-92). As Rickard observed, “the turn of the century was much more hospitable to models of mind that transgressed or violated” conventional narratives. Joyce was able to finally step outside of the narrative constraints by which he had felt himself to be bound previously with the writing and subsequent publication of Ulysses. Joyce was wholly cognizant of the novel’s uniqueness, and even questioned whether a traditional publisher would be willing to acquire the rights to the book and attach its name to Ulysses (Gilbert 112). In fact, a European literary magazine published the novel in serial format, prompting Joyce’s American publishers to burn “the entire May issue and [threaten] to cancel their license [that of the Little Review, in which the serial was published] if they continue to publish Ulysses” (in Gilbert 137). About this incident, Joyce was apparently non-plussed, writing, “This is the second time I have had the pleasure of being burned while on earth so that I hope I shall pass through the fires of purgatory as quickly as my patron [Saint] Aloysius” (in Gilbert 137). Thus, James appeared to have been free from the kind of pervasive, nearly crippling ambivalence that afflicted his characters, particularly Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. Although Bloom and Dedalus seem to have recovered some of their equilibrium upon the novel’s conclusion, the question remains: What will they do with the time that has been given to them?

What, then, to make of the effect of Ulysses and its notions of time upon the reader? Williams again offers a compelling and persuasive argument to propose an answer to this question. Ulysses, he contends, does not “endorse a passive acceptance of the status quo or advocate the patient awaiting of the end of time”. Instead, Williams suggests, Joyce’s novel “both embraces the past and faces the unknown without fear” while simultaneously demonstrating “how each day must be ‘digested,’” and “how each person who enters that text has the duty, on returning to this world, to interrogate the given universe of discourse”. One aspect of that discourse involves the effect that time has upon human beings’ perceptions of possibility. Although it is common to feel that the passage of time is ravaging, it is important to acknowledge time’s real effects while living fully and meaningfully.

Works Cited

• Gilbert, Stuart. Letters of James Joyce. New York: Viking Press, 1957.
• Joyce, James. Ulysses. New York: Vintage, 1986.
• Rickard, John S. Joyce’s Book of Memory: The Mnemotechnics of Ulysses. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
• Williams, Trevor. “‘Hungry Man is an Angry Man’: A Marxist Reading of Consumption in Joyce’s Ulysses.” Mosaic 26.1 (1993): 87.

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