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Telling Time
Why Are There 24 Hours In A
Day And 60 Minutes In An Hour?
Sandesha
Shinde
In recent years,
what is one of the most common answers we give in response to any question
we’re asked, request made of us, or suggestion of how we spend our time?
Obviously, it comes
as no wonder that we never have TIME to ever think about the TIME we have?
Not even the TIME
we have, but the way we organize it! Confused? Let me clarify.
Have you ever
wondered why the wristwatch strapped to your arm (assuming you still use one),
your mobile screen, or any other damn clock in the world shows 12 numbers
signifying 12 hours?
Why isn’t it some
other random number, like 28 or 16?
What is the
significance of twelve in our perception of time?
I mean, if you give
it any thought, you can’t deny that our measuring system is pretty weird. Allow
me to explain:
§ 24 hours are divided into two parts – a day lasting 12
hours and a night lasting 12 hours
§ 1 hour contains 60 minutes, which also have 60
seconds each.
§ Each second is then divided into 1000 milliseconds.
Now, that seems
like a rather strange way to divide a day.
No wonder kids have
trouble learning how to tell time!
However, as always,
like every other thing in the world, there is a reason behind this too.
The Impact of
Civilization
In
today’s world, we widely use the decimal number system, a system that is
believed to have originated because it made it easy for us to count things on
our fingers.
Back then, when
humans were still exploring the wonders of nature and finding answers to
their countless questions, many other numerical systems were commonly
used.
The Egyptians and
Babylonians, who first divided the day into smaller parts, used duodecimal
(base 12) and sexagesimal (base 60) numeral systems.
That obviously begs
the question – why base 12 and base 60? The reason is very simple, yet quite
surprising!
Yes, believe it or
not, the structure of our fingers is precisely the reason!
The number of
finger joints on each hand (excluding the thumb) makes it possible to count to
12 by using the thumb.
Surprised
at what a simple explanation that is? Well, things are going to get
slightly more complicated…
Why 24 hours?
T Shaped bar |
Let’s
try to understand this step-by-step.
The 24-hour day
concept comes from the ancient Egyptians.
They
divided the day into 10 hours with devices like shadow clocks and then
added one hour at each end (one for twilight and one at the end of the day).
Later, a T-shaped
bar was made by Egyptians, which was calibrated to divide the time between
sunrise and sunset into 12 parts.
However, the absence of sunlight made it difficult to
divide the time at night.
It’s pretty interesting to learn how they managed to
do this. Yes, nighttime division of time was based on the observation of
stars!
In those ancient times, with no sophisticated technology to
use, they instead chose 36 star groups (small constellations) called
‘decans’, which rose consecutively on the horizon as the earth rotated.
Each decan rose before sunrise and marked the beginning of a
10-day period.
A total of 36 decans thus led to 36*10=360 days of a year.
From one twilight to another, 18 of these decans were
visible.
However, each twilight period had 3 of these decans assigned,
leaving 12 for the period of complete darkness (the duodecimal system is
working here as well!).
Thus, the rise of each decan marked an hour, so we ended up
with 12 hours in each night.
However, at that
time, the hours did not have a fixed length.
Constellations |
The Greek
astronomers who were then trying to find answers to the queries of the
universe, existence, and stars and galaxies (in short … astronomers) found it
difficult to manage calculations with the prevailing method.
Then, Hipparchus
gave us the “Equinoctial hours” by proposing the division of a day into 24
equal hours.
Even then, for a
long time, ordinary people kept using the seasonally varying hours.
It wasn’t until the
14th century in Europe, when mechanical clocks came into use in Europe, that
commoners began using the system that we practice to this day.
Why 60 Minutes and
60 Seconds?
The
Greek astronomers who helped us make life simpler by equally dividing 24 hours
followed the Babylonian’s sexagesimal (base 60) system for astronomical
calculations.
So, for
convenience, they further divided an hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60
seconds.
It is unknown why
the Babylonians used a base 60 system, but it may be because 60 is a special
number for fraction calculations.
It is the smallest
number divisible by the first 6 counting numbers, and also by 10,12,15, 20 and
30.
The concept of
milliseconds is quite modern, and since we use a base 10 system, each second is
divided into 1000 milliseconds.
Now, isn’t that
interesting?
The elegant ideas
of our ancestors still rule our day-to-day lives thousands of years later.
Now go out there
and flaunt your newly increased knowledge of time and make the best use of
it!
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