But the game ended in confusion and controversy with the referee blowing up with more than a minute still on the stadium clock after an earlier error.

BBC: Newcastle Falcons 13-17 Bath Rugby

Then in 1656, Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens made the first working pendulum clock, accurate to an error of less than one minute per day.

FORBES

But the two coaches subsequently revealed that they had been informed by the fourth official that the clock had been stopped in error and that the referee would blow the final whistle earlier than the official timing indicated.

BBC: Newcastle Falcons 13-17 Bath Rugby

Some researchers have tried to use the regular rate at which error patterns appear in dog DNA as a kind clock to time their rise, but this has produced contradictory results.

BBC: Dog evolved 'on the waste dump'