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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

"A person with a watch knows what time it is. A person with two watches is never sure."

Not quite. A more accurate version would be:

"A person with a watch thinks they know what time it is, but they are wrong. A person with two watches is never sure, and they are right."

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EDIT: And Einstein is watching from above, smiling.

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Your version is basically an analogue of explaining a joke. Figuring it yourself is the point.

Besides that, I believe your version explains only one facet of the quote. Another interpretation could be analogous to paralysis of choice - in practice both watches are precise enough, focusing on the difference is just misleading you.

Modern version: As I put on my second watch, an error bar appeared and the boss music started playing.

Moreover a man with two watches takes the average and gets closer to knowing what time it actually is...

I mean, how is this true if he doesn't know which watch is "wronger" and by what margin of error? If it is 2pm and one watch shows 2pm and another 1:30pm the average is worse off than having one watch that shows 1:46pm.

If you have 2 watches with let's say 5-minute difference, I have a pretty high confidence that the indicated hour is correct. The chance that both watches e.g. broke in the same way is small.

I don't think you will necessarily get a higher precision, but your confidence of the indicated time is higher.

Time is an overloaded word, and one of its meanings is a social construct. So they're both right.

The saying makes less sense to a modern audience. We can all pull out our phones and likely show the same time due to network time sync. BUT, what if we have 1000 phones all showing the same time, and they are ALL wrong? New layer to the sentiment....

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