For it will retain a perfect mechanical memory of many things which we may forget. -Thomas Edison 1 On 22 August 1940, the German astronomer Harald von Klüber used a gramophone to record a brief speech about universal time. In this wartime recording, von Klüber discussed the relativity of time and the need for a global time standard. Temporal convergence, he proclaimed, would facili-tate punctual communication, travel, and transportation-three aspects crucial to Germany's conduct of World War

more »

... but also relevant for a range of different research disciplines that were concerned with temporal accu-racy. As von Klüber referred to the newest technologies for measuring and synchronizing time with elaborate quartz clocks and wireless communica-tion, he was also performing what he understood by standardized time, through the medium of sound recording: in order to reproduce his meas-ured, persuasive voice, the gramophone disc needed to be played back at an exact, predefined rotation speed. 2 Carolyn Birdsall is associate professor of media studies at the University of Amsterdam. She leads the project "Mapping Transnational Conflict Heritage" (supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). Viktoria Tkaczyk leads the Research Group "Epistemes of Modern Acoustics" at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and is professor of media studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Both Special Issue editors thank Suzanne Moon for her assistance and editorial guidance. They would also like to especially thank Kate Sturge for her careful language editorial work on the papers, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. The workshop from which this volume grew was financially supported by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Heritage and Identity. Britta Lange and Jochen Hennig coorganized that workshop and supported it with their outstanding expertise on Berlin archives.