Time and gravity

~ From the Book "Naive - Super" by Erlend Loe

"......It is a lot more I didn´t know about time.
In a lab in Bonn there is a 3 meter long metal cylinder. Paul writes that it is shaped like a submarine and lying in a frame of steel surrounded by wires and other equipment for measurements. It is an atomic watch, and at the moment it is the most accurate clock on earth. It is more accurate than the rotation of earth.
An accuracy like that surprises me. It evidently has nothing to do with earth. It is just something somebody has decided. I like that. Strangely enough I feel that I can grasp time in a better way because of this. I want an atomic watch for my birthday.

As a compensation for the the irregularity of earths rotation they add a second now and then. The last time this was done was in June 1994.
Nobody told me about this.

Because of the atomic watches the definition of a second has changed. Before a second used to be defined as 1/86.400 of a day, but now it is 9.192.631.770 rotations of a celsium atom.
I think that is a lot of rotations.
This information puts me out a little. I feel a little sick and have to get the ball. I throw it for a while against the fridge until I am able to read on.
..........
Now I am reading on.
It just gets worse and worse.
Paul says that the gravity influences time - the man has no limits
Completely without warning he says that time is influenced by gravity and by movement.
I look at the cover of the book. It is published by a serious publish house. What he says is very likely accurate.

I get annoyed.
Why has nobody told me about this?
Doesn´t physics teachers understand that this makes a lot of difference?
Maybe they knew it all along? In that case I should get a revenge on them. I should push one of them hard in the back when they are not at all expecting it.

On the sun the time passes two million times slower than on earth.It is because of gravity. Paul says it is stronger up there.
I thought time was time and gravity was gravity.
It is obviously not like that.
With a couple of really good atom watches one can prove it in the empire state building.
This is not something I am making up.
If you put an atomic clock in the bottom of the empire state and one on the top, after a while you would see that the one on the top goes a little faster.
During a lifetime you will save a couple of 1/1000 seconds if you are on the street.
The one on the top of the empire state will be a little older than the rest of us.
I put the book down.
I feel very drained.
This definitely changes a lot
Time doesn´t exist"