Bushwalk Australia

When they made the first clock how did they know what time to set it at ?

sundial.

Once upon a time, they rang 1194. The dawn of NIST time servers killed it.

dingelberry wrote:When they made the first clock how did they know what time to set it at ?

Googled the manual.

The 1st real clocks were built by Harrison in response for the need of an accurate clock to determine Longitude. They would have been set by reference to celestial events at Greenwhich accordingly as they would then be referred to in conjunction with tables of celestial events (noon sun sights for example) in the course of their use.

Captain Cook was one of the 1st navigators to take a Harrison clock and use it for this purpose. Part of the reason Cook's maps were very accurate until very recent times that is post WW2.

Harrisons clock was the first to be able to maintain time on board a ship. Pendulums didn't quite cut it.

Good read on topic - "Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time"

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/14490/t ... ark-blaise

publishers blurb:
"It is difficult today to imagine life before standard time was established in 1884. In the middle of the nineteenth century, for example, there were 144 official time zones in North America alone. The confusion that ensued, especially among the burgeoning railroad companies, was an hourly comedy of errors that ultimately threatened to impede progress. The creation of standard time, with its two dozen global time zones, is one of the great inventions of the Victorian Era, yet it has been largely taken for granted. In Time Lord, Clark Blaise re-creates the life of Sanford Fleming, who struggled to convince the world to accept standard time. It’s a fascinating story of science, politics, nationalism, and the determined vision of one man who changed the world. "

Heres an interesting one though. How and why did we settle on 60.secs, 60 mins, 24 hour days? Do the time periods come natural or are they natural because we know them? Why not a 10 hour day? 100 minutes per hour with 100 seconds per minute? (Slightly shorter seconds)

12 (and its multiples) is a useful base number because it can be divided evenly by so many smaller numbers (2, 3, 4 & 6). That's a big part of the reason for its popularity in a lot of measuring systems.
Early daily divisions in European society were based around the monastic prayer regimen, but I have no idea exactly how it all got regimented into the modern system.

Ah very interesting, I never thought of it that way NNW. (And sadly, ive spent a lot of time thinking about it).
Did try to develop a useful metric time/ date system once as im not happy with the standard models. Not as easy as it sounds

Re Harrison's clock, I read the original version of this a ways back, and found it fascinating:
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius- ... navigation
And I seem to remember seeing a version of the clock in the recent Mapping show at the National Library in Canberra.

The clocks in the Canberra show were replicas, but pretty good ones:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/201 ... 957263.htm

thought of this thread when I read this one online…..

http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/slow- ... -time.html

"A different kind of wristwatch, the Slow Watch, aims to help us reimagine our relationship with time, by putting it into context and allowing us to visualize our entire day. First launched last year, and sold only online, the first of the Slow Watches (the Slow Jo) displays the entire 24 hour time cycle on the face of the device, and uses just a single hand to indicate the time, letting us focus on the moment, not the never-ending march of seconds."

I like the idea but would I miss my train?

Even as far back as the french revolution there have been attempts to create a "metric" time system. There is also a universal internet time idea that keeps coming back from the dead (and you can buy watches that match) My favorite weird thing like that is the Mars watches that some NASA guys wear to keep track of the day/night times for the mars rover. Mars has something like a 24.5 hour day.

Lots of stuff on the web about metric time

http://zapatopi.net/metrictime/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcbO3hl3_F0

perfectlydark wrote:Heres an interesting one though. How and why did we settle on 60.secs, 60 mins, 24 hour days? Do the time periods come natural or are they natural because we know them? Why not a 10 hour day? 100 minutes per hour with 100 seconds per minute? (Slightly shorter seconds)

Time is analogous to the degrees in a circle, i.e. 360 representing rotation of the Earth as the passing of time. An hour is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate through 15 degrees, and there are 24 of 'em.

Hence the subunits of degrees are also minutes and seconds, and the previous references to Harrison's clock for measuring longitude.

Read all about longitude here and the hour here.

The use of base 12 numbering systems comes from the number of bones in the fingers of one hand - yes, the ancients really did count on their fingers.