Take a second to tell the right time
QUESTION I regularly receive offers inviting me to buy a clock or watch that are ‘accurate to one second in 138 million years’. Why 138 million years? THE atomic clock is currently the most accurate in the world. And One of the most accurate is the Caesium Fountain Atomic Clock at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, Middlesex.
It can measure time to an accuracy of one second in 138 million years.
It is the basis of UK time and contributes to the international time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Radio- controlled clocks and watches get the time from UTC via a signal linked to the NPL. Peter Smith, Durham.
QUESTION Who is the oldest person to have had a No1 hit? FURTHER to the earlier answer, while Louis Armstrong lost the title of being the oldest artist to have a UK No1 to Sir Tom Jones, he still retains that title in the US.
His rendition of Hello, Dolly! reached No 1 there on May 9, 1964, when Louis was 63 years and 10 months old.
Mirroring her performance in the UK, Cher is also the oldest female artist to have had a No.1 in the US.
Believe was No.1 from March 13 – April 10, 1999 when she was 52 years and 10 months old.
In 2014, aged 88, Tony Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living artist to land a No.1 record on the US Billboard album chart with Cheek To Cheek – beating the achievement made by his No.1 Duets album in 2011.
Lawrence May, Sheffield, Yorkshire. QUESTION What happened to the Native American Indian Chief Dan George, who appeared in the Clint Eastwood film The Outlaw Josey Wales? And was Josey Wales based on a real person? I HAVE a feeling that the photograph in Answers to Corre- spondents (August 12) is one of Will Sampson.
I don’t think it is Chief Dan George.
Will Sampson was in the same film The Outlaw Josie Wales as Chief Dan George. His claim to fame was that he played the Chief in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I think I am right but I thought I should draw your attention to it.
Willie Brennan, by email. THE picture of Chief Dan George in Answers to Correspondents (August 12) is not Chief Dan George, but a picture of an actor called Will Samson.
John James Walsh, by email.