It can hardly be pure coincidence that, before gaining a university position, the young Einstein worked in the Swiss Patent Office, dealing specifically with patents relating to the synchronization of clocks at railway stations. It was probably there that it dawned on him: the problem of synchronizing clocks was, ultimately, an insoluble one. In other words, only a few years passed between the moment at which we agreed to synchronize clocks and the moment at which Einstein realized that it was impossible to do so exactly.
