Why is time the same all over the world while other units of measurements depend on where you are? Distance has feet and meters, temperature has Celsius and Fahrenheit, etc.
In: Other
The utter basics of time (sunrise, sunset, high noon) are the same throughout the world. Dividing it further into hours came after the Babylonians and spread everywhere that traced descent or connection to that civilization. But aside from religious services, hours, minutes and seconds really weren’t all that important to the average person until the Industrial Revolution.
Japan and China both had their own standards for day divisions. See [HERE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clock#Temporal_hours) for the wiki on Japan’s system. In both cases, they adopted the Western system after Western mechanical clocks became available. That was roughly 400 yrs ago. Changing over was comparatively easy because only wealthy people and temples had clocks. As industrial development evolved, this new time system spread with it.
At the time, most nations still used their own variations of what today we call the Imperial system of weights and measures. (even within the UK, an acre was a different size depending on whether you were in Scotland, Ireland, Wales or England) The metric system was invented around the time of the French Revolution, but took a very long time to spread. Even the French didn’t stick with it entirely after adopting it. (they went back and forth on it a few times) The reason was mainly because there was a huge established base of weights and measures already in use. Farm land and the deeds for them were all done in acres, gold, silver and other coinage was based on older systems (imperial and avoirdupois. Horses were (and still are) measured in hands. In short, there were a lot of common folk doing daily trade with the old systems. and they strongly resisted change.
In almost every nation, adoption of the metric system happened because it depended on trade with other nations to the point where a common system was desirable. and had a strong central government that could make it happen.
By comparison, the US doesn’t have as strong of a central gov’t, individual states can (and do) fight the adoption of the metric system. (which is a whole ‘nother subject) The US is the 500 lb gorilla of International trade, it doesn’t have to adopt a common standard to make things easier for its trade partners. The US is just a big market that it knows that other nations that wish to sell to the US will jump through whatever hoops they need to in order to make their products comply with the US measuring system.
Latest Answers