Time runs incessantly. Time pieces, such as clocks and watches attempt to accurately track the passing of time, the more accurately the better the time piece. The heart of a time piece is the “movement” which defines the rate the time indicators progress, such as the hands on an analog watch or clock or the digits in a digital time piece. Accurate and reliable time pieces are certainly useful and sometimes even necessary for example, to efficiently coordinate public transport such as buses, trains and airplanes, their passengers and crew and other industries such as manufacturing facilities where “time is of the essence” and “just in time” operations.

But there are occasions when accurate time is not necessarily advantageous. An acute example is the taking of tests and exams. As most persons as students have experienced, time as measured by accurate time pieces seems to run quicker during an examination, often “running out of time” before answers to exams can be written down for the teacher to grade.

Thus, there is the need for a time piece to run slower than accurate, slow enough to allow all answers to an exam or test to be expressed completely and accurately. I propose the Test-Time-Piece with a slower movement than an accurate time piece, a movement paced to the needs of the student not the teacher.
-- el dueno, Dec 12 2018

Simpler to accelerate the student up to high relativistic velocity, where time dilatation effects become pronounced. Time would genuinely pass more slowly outside the student's frame of reference compared to their own "local" time. No tinkering with clocks required, just a vehicle capable of traveling at near lightspeed.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 12 2018


[el dueno]! Welcome back! We were about to go out and look for you.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 12 2018


Does each student get an individual Test-Time-Piece? Heart rates may still mess up your admirable goal.
-- wjt, Dec 12 2018


Problem with accelerating the test subject to relativistic speeds is the common requirement to remain in the exam room for the duration of the test. Possible solutions include, 1. also accelerating the exam room to relativistic speeds; 2. having a very large exam room; 3. wearing compression underwear and using a centrifuge to attain high speeds without leaving the room.
-- pocmloc, Dec 12 2018


We consider that [1] is the most practical solution.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 12 2018


The timepiece could contain an imp* trained in explaining why jokes are funny, listing sports scores, and reciting Latin liturgy in order to make time pass more slowly for semi-euthanized listeners.

Previous experiments resulted in an inordinately long-lasting hegemony for the catholics, inexplicably high salaries for sports stars, and four decades of the 1950s.

*retrained, from the Discworld Disorganizer, thank you Pratchett.
-- Sgt Teacup, Dec 12 2018


"Bingley-bingley-beep" ?

// four decades of the 1950s. //

In New Zealand, they've managed to stretch it to six, and it looks like they're hanging on for the century (unlike their cricket team).
-- 8th of 7, Dec 12 2018



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