I’m sure I haven’t asked the question correctly, but if all the clocks in the world are aligned, when did we start it? How did the entire world agree that midnight is midnight and any second behind or ahead is out of line?
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Have a look at Greenwich Mean Time and Paris Meridian Time. Both were contenders for a base time for which other countries (who needed to have a united timezone due to railways and colonisation in general) would be a certain number of hours ahead of behind. Having an international date line over the relatively uninhabited central Pacific worked in both cases.
Have a look at Greenwich Mean Time and Paris Meridian Time. Both were contenders for a base time for which other countries (who needed to have a united timezone due to railways and colonisation in general) would be a certain number of hours ahead of behind. Having an international date line over the relatively uninhabited central Pacific worked in both cases.
Locally, a long time. More broadly, the British decided that since they went to all that trouble to lay rails and build trains to get from place to place, it would be useful if folks on either end could tell when the train would show up (or leave). That meant the times had to be synchronized, so they chose Greenwich Mean Time as the “standard” for the country.
Eventually, this spread to most other countries, again pushed mostly by train schedules.
Locally, a long time. More broadly, the British decided that since they went to all that trouble to lay rails and build trains to get from place to place, it would be useful if folks on either end could tell when the train would show up (or leave). That meant the times had to be synchronized, so they chose Greenwich Mean Time as the “standard” for the country.
Eventually, this spread to most other countries, again pushed mostly by train schedules.
Locally, a long time. More broadly, the British decided that since they went to all that trouble to lay rails and build trains to get from place to place, it would be useful if folks on either end could tell when the train would show up (or leave). That meant the times had to be synchronized, so they chose Greenwich Mean Time as the “standard” for the country.
Eventually, this spread to most other countries, again pushed mostly by train schedules.
The first notion of time would have been recognizing **”before” and “after”.**
Then came meta notions of seasonal cycles, and days. Somewhere along the way breaking the day into smaller units became a thing.
It is a system of measurement we found useful. It is not a property of the universe. Time started when we started using it.
[https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701](https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701)
The first notion of time would have been recognizing **”before” and “after”.**
Then came meta notions of seasonal cycles, and days. Somewhere along the way breaking the day into smaller units became a thing.
It is a system of measurement we found useful. It is not a property of the universe. Time started when we started using it.
[https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701](https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701)
The first notion of time would have been recognizing **”before” and “after”.**
Then came meta notions of seasonal cycles, and days. Somewhere along the way breaking the day into smaller units became a thing.
It is a system of measurement we found useful. It is not a property of the universe. Time started when we started using it.
[https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701](https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/time-did-not-exist-before-life-621f06889701)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Potentially 5000 years ago or so, Stonehenge is aligned to the summer and winter solstice and speculated to align with lunar cycles as well.
This makes sense for preparing for planting, growing, harvesting and the return of spring.
Sun dials have been used for more accurate daily time keeping. Candles were made to burn consistently so that they could be segmented and give an idea of time passage.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Potentially 5000 years ago or so, Stonehenge is aligned to the summer and winter solstice and speculated to align with lunar cycles as well.
This makes sense for preparing for planting, growing, harvesting and the return of spring.
Sun dials have been used for more accurate daily time keeping. Candles were made to burn consistently so that they could be segmented and give an idea of time passage.
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