We have different metrics internationally for length/distance, weights, temperature, etc. Why, as far as I know, is there only hours/minutes/seconds for the entire world? Not that I’m complaining, the alternative would be a huge pain in the a**, but I’m curious how that happened over time (sorry about the pun). TIA!
In: Physics
There are a lot of good answers about how standards are created and why it’s useful to have a single one, but I think your question gets more at the history behind the standard and why different cultures didn’t independently create their own.
The reason for that is that before industrialization there was never much need for a wide-spread standard. If you go back 200-250 years ago nobody was keeping track of time as closely as we do now. They just didn’t need to in their day-to-day life. The overwhelming majority of people everywhere were subsistence farmers. Their lives were dictated by the needs of their animals, the changing of the seasons, and crop cycles. They didn’t care if it was 6AM or 4AM or 8AM. If the sun was up and the rooster crowing, it was time to do work. Likewise, they didn’t need to care how long a minute or hour or second was. There was nothing in their life that was timed so precisely that they needed that information.
It wasn’t until people started working outside the home in factories that regimented time started to become important. That’s when factory owners demanded their workers show up at a specific time and work for a specific amount of time. They started measuring production rates, which required precise time units. This is when the majority of people started caring paying attention to specific units of time like minutes, seconds, and hours.
Standards for units of time spread with industrialization, starting in the UK, then spreading to northern Europe and the US. Then, through them, to imperial possessions around the world. That’s why everyone has the same standard. One wasn’t needed until after most of the world was owned and controlled by European (and US) empires, at which point they all pushed the same standard on everyone else.
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