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
Before there were clocks or timezones and stuff.
There were the things in the sky.
Everyone can track the sun and note at what time it’s at its highest.
This became noon.
that’s where measuring hours started.
For a long time everyone would set their clocks to be 12 pm at their local noon, but as trains were invented, this mess of time was hard to work with so they made a particular observatory in Greenwich be the 0 point and divided the world from there.
The movements of the planet affects the seasons, specifically you can track how long the day lasts, and figure out how long it takes for the earth to go around the sun by how the length of the day changes.
You can also do some equivalent things like counting how many times the moon changed phases, or seeing what stars were where at certain times.
Or what big planets were doing.
You see stuff like that for determining the year/months still in many cultures.
Basically none of them agree on when the year starts, that date is pretty arbitrary. The current start date involves some convoluted and largely irrelevant curiosities regarding a Roman God called Janus.
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