aleng's journal

Now that we've covered a part of origin of calendars, let's move on to how time was originated.

Unstoppable Time

How did we know that a day consists of 24 hours, and of course, this is related to the previous post; hence, different countries and tribes might use different methods to calculate hours. Like the Sumer calendar, it is (probably) agreed that a minute is 60 seconds and each hour is 60 minutes, but why 60? Why not 50 or 20?
EXTRA NOTES: 60 is a widely used number, such as; angles, time, and geographic coordination. The number 60, a superior highly composite number, has twelve factors, namely {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60}, of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers. With so many factors, many fractions involving sexagesimal numbers are simplified. For example, one hour can be divided evenly into sections of 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 10 minutes, 6 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute. 60 is the smallest number that is divisible by every number from 1 to 6; that is, it is the lowest common multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
One hour of time is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute is divided into 60 seconds. Thus, a measurement of time such as "3:23:17" (three hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds) can be interpreted as a sexagesimal number, meaning 3×60² + 23×60¹ + 17×60⁰. As with the ancient Babylonian sexagesimal system, however, each of the three sexagesimal digits in this number (3, 23, and 17) is written using the decimal system.
Similarly, the practical unit of angular measure is the degree, of which there are 360 in a circle. There are 60 minutes of arc in a degree, and 60 arcseconds in a minute; hence the origin concept of clocks and stopwatch (the analogue stopwatch)
(Source: Wikipedia)
The 24 hours concept was actually counted by astronomers in the old days, and there were various methods in counting; counting from dawn, sunset, noon, and midnight. And again, each country have different methods in counting it.
For those which counted from dawn, sunrise marked the beginning of the first hour (the zero hour), the middle of the day was at the end of the sixth hour and sunset at the end of the twelfth hour. This meant that the duration of hours varied with the season. In the Northern hemisphere, particularly in the more northerly latitudes, summer daytime hours were longer than winter daytime hours, each being one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset. These variable-length hours were variously known as temporal, unequal, or seasonal hours and were in use until the appearance of the mechanical clock, which furthered the adoption of equal length hours. Not to mention, this concept might've lead some astronomers to think that the Earth's revolution orbit was NOT a circle shaped one, which was then proven and now lives the concept of elliptical shape orbit. And also, this method is used in Jewish law.

Sundial

Meanwhile, unlike the previous one, the Babylonians count hours using sundials, and divide the day and night into equal 24 hours.
For many centuries, up to 1925, astronomers counted the hours and days from noon, because it was the easiest solar event to measure accurately. An advantage of this method (used in the Julian Date system, in which a new Julian Day begins at noon) is that the date doesn't change during a single night's observing.
In the modern 12-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and restarts at noon. Hours are numbered 12, 1, 2, ..., 11. Solar noon is always close to 12 noon, differing according to the equation of time by as much as fifteen minutes either way. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 6 A.M., and sunset around 6 P.M.
In the modern 24-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and hours are numbered from 0 to 23. Solar noon is always close to 12:00, again differing according to the equation of time. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 06:00 and sunset around 18:00.
While astronomers are busy counting how many hours exist in a day, other scientists uses the concept of time as a unit to count other stuffs, like velocity, acceleration, force, manpower, etc. And so, it was probably universal for the world after they see their results and compare to one another, and agreed that one day consists of 24 hours.

We always complain that time is either too fast when we're having fun, or too slow when we're bored. Now, since 2014 is about to end (I know, "WHAT?! It's almost 2015 already?"), I'm going to share some of my findings upon searching about the origin of time. Now, let's start...In the past, cavemen have no knowledge about anything, they even thought 'fire' was a God. Now let's think logically, how do they discover 'time' if they even consider fire as God? Well, of course, humans think and curiosity brought us to where we are now. However, that leads to the main topic, where did time originated? Does time even exist?

The Fabric of Cosmos: Illusion of Time

Time, the fourth dimension after dimension of space. Scientifically, time is 'unreal', based on Antiphon and Sophist. They said that "Time is not a reality (hypostasis), but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron)." Another thing is, some people assume time as nothing but mere illusion. Parmenides went further, maintaining that time, motion, and change were illusions, leading to the paradoxes of his follower Zeno, and religiously, time is considered to be a mortal illusion which is a common topic in the Buddhist religion.

However, in reality, we need time, now comes the origin of calendar and clocks. How did human knew that a day is 24 hours? How did they knew that there were DAY? How did they knew that months exist? How did years exist?
Now, let's start slow. Human probably knew how to find food before time exist, and they've probably knew when the land will be 'lighten' and 'darken', so I can assume that they will get tired once the land and sky darkens. Now the main question, when did calendars start existing? You probably know the all famous Mayans, and yes, they have a calendar of their own. Now, in early civilizations, several calendar systems were born, for example; in Sumer, their calendars have 12 months with 29 to 30 days each. The Mesoamericans made a calendar of their own, the Maya had two separate years—the 260-day Sacred Round, and the 365-day Vague Year, the ancient Athenians used a lunisolar calendar, which uses the phases of the moon, that lasted 364 days. The Romans used two different year lengths; the older one had 304 days divided into 10 months; the newer 365 days divided into 12 months; very much like the modern calendar.

Sumer calendar

 In Sumer calendar, each new month began with the new sighting of the moon. However, there was a problem in this calendar, due to the usage of sexagesimal system (in where the base number is 60), they do not use weeks, and in every month, there are different number of days. Not to mention, they always add another month for every new year, and the new month is around 62 days. (I know right, this method will make your life suffer more with less holidays). Another thing is, in this calendar, a day is divided into 12 hours (speaking of "not enough time"), six daylight hours, each lasting one-sixth of the day, and six nighttime hours, each lasting one-sixth of the night. This means each day in the Sumer calendar have different hours, which proves why during summer, daytime is longer, and during winter, nighttime is longer. However, due to the inconsistency, I'm pretty sure the system is stopped.

Mayan calendar (Yes, it doesn't make sense)

 The Maya calendars are the most complex one, and I have to say, I'm having a hard time understanding it. In their calendar, there are 2 years—the 260-day Sacred Round, and the 365-day Vague Year. The Sacred Round is divided into smaller cycles, and the Vague Year which is much like our modern calendar now, has 365 days, consisting of 18 20-days months. The Sacred Round is the smaller circle, each symbol represents a day, and they have different names: Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Eiznab, Cauac, and Ahau. They are usually used in important days for Gods, birthdate, determining auspicious dates, and predicting future. The days begin from Imix, the bird like diagram shown with one dot below it. The larger circle is the Vague Year, consisting of 18 month with different names, in order, as: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xuc, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Maun, Pax, Kayab and Cumku. (Now, for the prediction of 2012 End of the World will not be explain here, although it was related to the Mayan calendar)

Roman's father calendar

The Greece calendar has 365 days, to be precise, 365.25 days. This is the calendar we are using now. Then the Roman calendar consists of 10 months with 8 weeks, but they soon undergo further adjustment and we have the new 12 month a year calendar.


That's all for today's Origin of Time, did I forgot any info? Share it below!