Since this is I’m gonna explain my question the same way.
Imagine there is a time-hating wizard who magically removes all time-keeping instruments like atomic clocks, phones and watches, so there is no way of knowing the time right now. If then we were asked to ‘bring back’ the old time that we used (e.g. so that we start again measuring 12:00 in London exactly when it was 12:00 in London before the wizard) could this be done? Is there something physical constant (like kg or meter) that determines what time of day it is? Or, did someone just say “we start measuring time from now, and I say that it is exactly 14:32…”?
Also, if there is this constant that allows us to know exactly when a certain time is, doesn’t that mean we don’t need atomic clocks and can just compare ourselves to this constant? Idk what this would be but perhaps when the sun is absolutely highest in the sky somewhere?
In: 40
When we started measuring time like everyone said it started with measuring 12:00 or the time when there was the least shadow, but due to seasons and the earths rotation that changed daily. Then sundials we’re invented and kept more consistent time but they were to heavy and couldn’t be carried with you. So then clocks were invented and if you only did business or met up with people from your area this was fine, everyone had their clocks set by the same or a similar 12:00. But once people started to travel and do business with others further away meeting times or delivery time ect were confusing and a wizard decided we need a standard time, and each country/region set their own standard time. Then at some point this still got confusing because it would still change from region to region so another wizard decided there would be a universal standard time around the world and since it benefits everyone it’s one of the few things all humans agreed on. So this wizard for some reason (the reason was that it benefits the largest number of people and puts the end of the day in the middle of the Pacific Ocean meaning that no country is forced to be on two dates at once) picked Greenwich, England as 12:00 or in this case 00:00. This means that all time zones are measured from that starting point and why we have a + or – on our time zones, for example, Sydney australia is +10 meaning 10 hours before Greenwich, and LA, USA is -7 meaning 7 hours after Greenwich. So this means that sunrise is always about 6am and sun set is about 6pm at the equator but varies because of seasons and the tilt of the earth. Like I’m australia we have daylight savings time with sets the clocks 1 hour back so the sun still rises about 6am but then extends the day so sun set is approximately 8pm, making better use of daylight rather than having a 5am – 7pm day when most people rise about 7am essentially “wasting” two hours of daylight
Edit* after reading I realised I didn’t really answer the question;
So to answer your question, yes we could, it would just be measured by the sun, the most and least consistent time keeper we have (inconsistent in the sort term, more consistent in the long term) but we have been measuring the sun and starts since the start of history and probably before and we still haven’t really nailed it down 100%. To be honest if we started from scratch we would people have a whole new system for keeping time but it would be at the essence the same thing, a way for anyone anywhere to communicate a period of time before they want something done, weather that’s to meet for lunch or to have a product/service made and delivered.
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