How to measure time?
Time is often called the fourth dimension. The other three being length, width, and height. Those are easy to measure. Pick up anything, declare its length to be the standard unit and start holding it against objects. You can even do that several times or at any time you wish.
Time is different in that way. How do we measure time? We compared the other dimensions to something within that dimension. Can we do the same with time? How do you hold another time next to the timeframe you want to measure? And even if we manage to do that, can we do it again and again or at any time we chose?
We started to name recurring events. The most prominent one in nature being the day. Some cultures define a day from sunrise/set to the next sunrise/set, some from noon (sun reached highest place) to noon and some the direct opposite, from midnight to midnight (sun at noon on the direct other side of the earth).
A day is pretty long, if you want to measure short events during the day. Another unit was needed and we divided the day into 24 hours. This goes on, we get 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute. That was enough for the everyday life for hundreds of years. Then we got into milliseconds and nanoseconds because technology needed more precise measuring.
After we cleared this up, let us start a journey into some fun facts of measuring time.
Why those “strange” numbers?
Why do we have 24 hours and not 10 or 20? And why do we have 60 minutes/seconds and not 100?
Because we, as human kind, started measuring time way before the introduction of the metric system. And even though most children do count with their fingers and reach the number 10, most adults realized there is a “better” way of counting with your hands.
Counting
Using the thumb as an index you can count three bones per finger. Assuming no heavy injuries you can count to 12 with one hand that way. The 12 became the focal point for most number based interactions between humans. If you use two hands you can count to 24. If you use the bones method on one hand and count with fingers on the other the amount of “round trips” you already made on the 12-base hand, you can count to 12 * 5 = 60. And 12 * 12 = 144 being named a gross comes from using one hand for 1-12 and the other as a factor reminder, how many times you already counted.
Dividing
Here we are, having 24 hours per day and 60 minutes and seconds. Additionally the number 24 has a lot of divisors. You can easily divide it by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12. We’re missing the 5 and 10 most prominently. That is why the hour is divided into 60 minutes. We got the 5 and 10 in there, as well as 15, 20, and 30. Sadly, the 8 had to go again. But if you put the minutes and hours together, we not only see the gross again, we can now also divide by all those other numbers we missed so far. We got 1440 minutes per day and can easily chop them up in smaller parts without resorting to fractions.
When we started to worry about even smaller amounts of time, it was more for scientific research. Since the metric system is most prominent in science, it was logical to use it for the smaller time units, so we introduced milli and nanoseconds.
How long is a day?
That is easy. We just said, one day is 24 hours (which in turn is 1440 minutes and so on). Yes, as long as you follow the above definition. But there is always someone who tells you “The time it takes the earth to make one full rotation.”
Nope. Welcome, to fun fact number 2.
Let us imagine we are watching the earth from orbit. We look down at the north pole and the earth turns counter clockwise. Isn’t that ironic, we measure time based on earth rotation but the clock turns the other way around? Anyway, the sun is left to the earth in this mental picture, directly shining on any spot you chose. Let’s take Greenwich since it’s the 0° meridian anyway. Now we take a full rotation. But the sun is not shining directly at Greenwich. Just a small angle is missing for the high noon. Why? Because the earth is also rotating around the sun. Ironically counterclockwise again. It moved up (and slightly to the left) a little bit. A full earth rotation “only” takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and (rounded down) 4 seconds. The other 3 Minutes and 56 seconds to get the complete 24 hours are needed to compensate for the earth rotating around the sun.
You can experiment with it at home. Put a lamp in the middle of the room. That will be the sun. Sit in an office chair facing the lamp. You are now the earth. Rotate on your own axis while also rotating the chair around the lamp. Both counter clock wise. For a better demonstration make it a quarter of a circle “per day”. The angle you moved around the lamp (in this case 90 degrees) needs to be compensated by you adding to your full rotation those 90 degrees.
So the angle the earth moves around the sun while performing a full rotation must be added to its own rotation to compensate and put the sun at the same position in the sky. And that is what we call a day and divided it into 24 hours and so on.
What about a year?
Which brings us to fun fact number 3. Even though a year is 365 days long (forget about leap year for a second), the earth moves completely around the sun and every day we have to add the small extra angle to its own rotation meaning: Within one year this adds to one extra rotation hence the earth rotates 366 times in one year.
Sadly, it’s not that easy. We didn’t quite make it. Let us put leap year back on the table. What are we actually doing in a leap year? We add one extra day every 4 years. Why? Because every year we miss the complete rotation around the sun by roughly 6 hours. No worries, February for the rescue. At least so we thought for a few hundred years until 1582. To a few of my readers, this year might sound familiar. You are about to learn why.
We are missing 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds per year for the full rotation around the sun. Give or take a few milliseconds. By adding one extra day every 4 years we actually miss by 45 minutes again. That is not too bad you might think and so did most of humanity. But in the 16th century we realized that 45 minutes in 4 years means more than 18 hours per century were piling up all the time. So they did some calculations and the result was to eliminate those 18 hours every century by declaring that every year ending on a double zero would not be a leap year even though it can be divided by 4.
Hey, wait a minute. If you did the math, you might have realized: We are still 6 hours off every century. No problem, every 4th time this rule shall be ignored, meaning: If it ends on 00 it is no leap year except for those years that can be divided by 400. That is why 1900 was no leap year but 2000 was and why 2100 will not be.
It is still not exact but the difference is now so small, it should keep us safe for a few thousand years or so.
But the damage was already done. To correct the error the year 1582 was special. Pope Gregor not only signed the new rules for leap years but also declared that in that year after Thursday, October the 4th the Friday should be October the 15th. We just skipped 10 days because this problem was actually introduced into the calendar way before the year 0. The church needed the equinox (day and night being exactly the same time length) to be on march 21st for the clerical calendar to match up with the numerical calendar.
Most people in that time had no use for the exact date. Most important was the day of the week. Common folks just needed to know whether to work or (on Sunday) go to church. Because that order was not disturbed, a lot of people did not even notice the change because they only were told the exact date for specific events in church and seldom kept count every day.
But nowadays we all keep track of the exact date.
>>>> Spoiler alert <<<<
If you have not yet read “Around the world in 80 days” and are sensitive to spoilers, skip this section
We also keep track of the exact time of the day. Well, sort of. At least to the second. So when Phileas Fogg traveled around the world in 80 days he insisted on adjusting his watch to the local time zones. He also kept track of the date and wrote a journey. By traveling east, with the rotation of the earth, he “lost” one hour every time he entered a new time zone. He had to turn his clock forwards because the sun rose earlier for him compared to his start/end point London. After one complete trip around the world his travel log showed 80 days. That his because he saw the sun rise 80 times. But sadly, he was 5 minutes over the deadline that day. So he thought.
During the same time period the sun rose only 79 times in London. He thought he lost his bet when in fact he won. Luckily his servant Passepartout realized the mistake and explained it to him.
Now imagine you make a round trip heading west. The story would not have had such an exciting ending. The same time passed but he would have only 79 days in his journal. With every timezone he would have "gained" an extra hour. With an extra day to spare he would have realized he had just barely won. Even worse, maybe he would have waited to the next day, thinking there's one day to spare. And then he would have lost his bet.
Hooray for the narrative genius of Jules Verne.
Let's give some room here for the spoiler sensitive.
Now we can declare:
END OF SPOILER
I hope you enjoyed these little nuggets I found during my research over the years. I want to give a big thank you to Dreemport for hosting this month’s events. I was finally able to put this knowledge to use.
This post was written as an entry to the Dreem-WOTW: Time Contest.
See you all next time.
Header image from pixabay
Earth-Sun image designed by me with free elements in Canva
Edit: Ooops, I wrote "... skipped 10 years ..." which is now corrected and reads "... skipped 10 days ..."
Some measure time by constants in the Universe. The rotation of a single electron around the proton inside a hydrogen atom. Hydrogen being the single most common element in the universe.
And some? by the oddest of all units: The Shake. As in Two Shakes of a Lambs Tail.
In nuclear engineering and astrophysics, a shake is defined as 10 nanoseconds.
The Shake is cool, but I prefer The Jiffy:)
There's also, the Warhol which is 15 minutes
oh now I get it. Sometimes this language barrier is still playing tricks on me 😉
Both the Shake and the Warhol are real actual units of time. Sure, they started as pop culture, but they are real.
so summary: a shake is 10 ns and a warhol is 15 minutes.
if I ever win in a game-show with this knowledge I'm gonna hunt you down and hug you both 😋
Random time factoid wins game show!
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Fair enough, same for me. Consider it a pact!
jeje the Andy Warhol!
I have never heard of that, cheers Blue!
Thank you, I bet there is some nice story behind those units as well. Somehow everything has a story.
Do you know anything about it, if it is interesting to research?
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that is one of the most interesting knowledge i ever known. good job
Thank you, glad you find is interesting. Came across it all quite by accident. Funny how such stuff accumulates over the years. 😆
Now, I can say I learnt something new today about time. Fun facts added to my knowledge and that was a well compiled article from you. Thanks for sharing 👍
I came through Dreemport 🤗
Thank you for the compliment.
So happy you will keep that knowledge, than it was time well spent 😉
There are no leap years in the Julian calendar. What calendar do the church use that they know when is Easter etc each year?
actually, there were...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
before the julian calendar it was a complete mess around the world. the expansion of the roman empire until the 8th century and the adoption of catholic beliefe as state religion within the roman empire brought us the calendar we have today
The clerical calender is based on the easter event. Easter sunday is defined as the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox (now back on track at march 21st).
All other events are placed certain amount of days before/after easter, except for those with a fixed date (e.g. christmas is always december 25th)
It is interesting that the church uses dates based on the sun's analemma and the buddism use a moon calendar. yet we use something different.
Great food for thought article!! thanks!
Indeed an interesting aspect and maybe some time a point of further investigation 😉
Thank you 😊
An awesome article, I love researching things too.
Back in a jiffy is my favourite measurement of Time:)
Thank you 😊
Yes, it is sometimes a very deep rabbit hole this thing called research. So many things to discover.
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Research is a rabbit hole, but boy it is a great way to learn and broaden our minds :)
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I love that I learnt to count in a whole new way reading your post. Finger counting just got a whole lot more exciting. 😂
😋 I can imagine you sitting there doing the counting. Just like I did with a dropping jar the first time I heard about it. 🤣🤣
OMG! It's like you were there watching me. 😂
Some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. I knew before about the discrepancy with the Gregorian calendar, but didn't realise to what extent this fixed-timing system was flawed over a long period. And the extra seconds, hours, days, years. That's pretty cool to think about. Like Fogg, we're perpetually behind time because of our measurement. I like this thought. There's always time. Probably going way too philosophical with this, but it's fun food for thought. And always love learning new things, so cheers for this post!
Thank you.
I like your thought about being behind time.
Sure, why not be philosophical? Go for it, I like to read such thoughts.
Time is a fascinating subject :) ... And yet, we are sometimes so careless with this treasure 🙌
I found your post via Dreemport 🙌
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Yes, thank you for that reminder.
Uh, thank you very much 😊
My pleasure, well done on your challenge post :)
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This was an excellent article! Educational and informative! You held my interest throughout. You presented the facts and figures clearly and methodically. It's a wonder that the world was able to agree on the basic precepts and all the corrections... not to mention the corrections to corrections !LOLZ. And what you are really saying in the end is that we are currently living 2 weeks in the future, thanks to Pope Gregor 😂🤨🙌 !ALIVE !PIZZA
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