eli5: How do you tell a computer what time it is? You can tell a mechanical clock to tick every second using physics but how do you do the same to a non-moving electronic device?

Question

eli5: How do you tell a computer what time it is? You can tell a mechanical clock to tick every second using physics but how do you do the same to a non-moving electronic device?

In: Technology

Answer 1

You have two main ways of doing it. Quartz crystals vibrate at a specific frequency so can be used to measure time. This is especially common in the likes of wrist watches.

The other main method is to use the mains AC frequency which in the UK is 50hz. This is mostly the likes of beside clocks, less so in computers because they tend to rely on DC current past the power supply block.

Notably however most computers don’t *need* to keep good time as they can use NTP (Network Time Protocol) to sync their clocks to a known source over the internet. Other devices can also sync time through GPS which uses a hyper accurate time stamp as a means of determining location.