anachronism--Hayden

a·nach·ro·nism  (-nkr-nzm)

n.

1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.

2. One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time: "A new age had plainly dawned, an age that made the institution of a segregated picnic seem an anachronism" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)


Context
Hayden pointed out that having a digital clock in a play about his ancestor, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, a geologist who lived in the 19th century, was anachronistic.