Your editorial (Clocking time…, 26 April) suggests that reading analogue clocks and watches requires computational skills. Indeed it does when one is learning to tell the time, but the main value once that has been learned is that an analogue clock facedisplay is information-rich in a way that a digital display is not. If I have 30 minutes to do a task, the analogue display shows me not only start time but finish time and progress can be checked instantaneously at any point in between – a huge amount of useful information. A digital display tells you the time but it requires mental arithmetic to work out whether you are on time or running late. Analogue wins hands down, as it were.
Ian Skidmore
Welwyn, Hertfordshire
• You overlook one significant advantage of analogue clocks. The digital display has to be read using the centre of the retina, but the position of the analogue hands can be taken in more quickly with a fleeting glance and even using peripheral vision.
Laurence Gibson
Buckingham
• Re the clock dialogue, I doubt that many youngsters will not want to own a Rolex, and the face on that is always analogue.
John Richards
Oxford
• You suggest that no method of marking time’s restless onward march is better than watching a clock face. May I submit a better one? An hourglass.
Trevor Jordan
Ibstock, Leicestershire
• Digital clocks make me late. If I have an appointment for 09:00 and a digital watch says 08:58, I have plenty of time. However, looking at my analogue watch I can plainly see that there are only two minutes to go. Hurry up!
Paul Bryan
Walsall, West Midlands
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