ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Byzantine time

Byzantine time is a way of keeping track of the time that was used in the Byzantine Empire long ago. It's a bit like a clock, but instead of using hands that move around in a circle, it uses something called "hours." An hour is just a smaller part of a day, kind of like how a slice of pizza is a smaller part of a whole pizza.

Now, here's where things get a little more complicated. In the Byzantine Empire, they didn't just use regular hours. They used special hours, which were set by some important people called "monks." These monks would say when it was time for certain prayers or religious ceremonies, and that's how everyone else knew what time it was.

But sometimes, the monks wouldn't agree on what time it was supposed to be. Some of them might say it was time for prayer, while others said it wasn't. This was called a "Byzantine fault," because it meant that there was a problem with the way they were keeping track of time.

So to fix this problem, they came up with something called the "Byzantine agreement protocol." This was a way for all the monks to communicate with each other and make sure they agreed on what time it was supposed to be. They would send messages back and forth, and if everyone agreed on something, then they would all change their clocks to match.

And that's pretty much what Byzantine time is all about. It's a way of keeping track of time that was used a long time ago in a faraway place, and it involved some important monks who had to work together to make sure everyone was on the same page.
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