Life, But Not as We Know it Jim: Waltham Traveller

It has been a while, but always a glutton for punishment seeker of knowledge, I went along to the Knutsford Scibar again last night to hear a talk on When Authors and Scientists Collide by Dr Rob Appleby of Manchester University High Energy Physics Department. His primary research he said was "the physics of particle accelerators and beam dynamics" and was heavily involved in that truly sci-fi CERN Large Hadron Collider loop.

What I didn't prepare myself for was that Dr Rob's talk was actually about him working alongside two writers on two separate anthologies of short stories: One was a collaboration with author Stella Duffy on Short Stories from Modern Science in a book called Litmus; whilst the other was with sci-fi writer Paul Cornell on Global Collider Generation: An Idyll, from the book When it all Changed. The latter involved a futurist vision of a new cold war dystopia and a global particle accelerator braced around the earth. Blimey. Rather heady stuff for me on a Monday night, but given the unexpected sci-art dimension, I was doing quite well up to a certain point. I even had the nerve to ask a question in front of all those nerdy, beardy boffins.

Then it all started to deteriorate quite quickly, a bit like my experience of Inelastic Water at the 14th May Scibar. Dr Rob went on to talk about elementary particles Quarks and Gluons (aren't these the arch-nemisis of Captain James T Kirk?); discovery of the Higgs Boson (character in Master & Commander?); and then the Lorentz Invariant Quantities (whoa - the coup de grâce, particularly as my pint had finished by now). To conclude, he started to explain about the speed of light, relativity and time as a 4th dimension. He finished this with an explanation why time-travel could never happen (kill joy).

Reviewing it all this morning, this made me think about what I could possibly blip today that might link with relative time and the iconic ring of the huge Hadron collider?

As a complete contrast, all I could think of in the end was my paternal grandfather Jim's modest little Waltham Traveller - an old pocket watch, held inside the round fob of a gold Dennison case. Not sci-fi for sure, but it certainly does feels like I travel back in time when I feel it's weight in my palm. It was awarded to my grandfather in 1951 on the anniversary of his 50 years service working at Ellis Dean & Sons in Westhoughton. Sadly, he died not many years after that, of a massive heart attack, and just before my parents wedding (they even had to take his hired wedding suit back to Moss Bros).

Anyway, I checked the serial number online today just out of curiosity, and it seems it was made in the USA in 1931. The Waltham Watch Company was also the first watchmaker to mass-produce watch movements on an assembly line. As such, I don't think this is worth much, though I would of course never sell it anyway. My dad had given it me to look after years ago, but it has never run in all the time I have had it.

Blow me though, mid-way through writing this, and after having just opened it's inner lid to read the serial number and set it down, it suddenly started ticking. I had to record it on youtube here, just because it was such a delightful motion, and seemed to be a magical sign.