Talk:Intellectual history of time

3600 seconds per hour

It occurs to me as I work on this that it was not until the pendulum clock that it was decided that there would be 3600 seconds to the hour. I imagine it was picked since

• it's a 'nice' mulitiple of 360 degrees to a circle (already established)
• the pendulum length was 'do-able'

I do not think that it was decided in advance that it must conform with Sumerian base 60 math - it just did since 360 was convenient (and has lots of factors)

Unless - someone can find where even a minute (no less a second) already had some precise meaning - even in navigation, seconds (& minutes maybe) were beyond measurement. Also some clocks had hours with 4 parts to the hour(quarter hours).

Must check on that Swiss, logarithm guy that put a minute hand on the Nuremberg eggs (clocks) for tycho Brahe --JimWae 08:30, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

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Does this explain why the second hand is the THIRD hand? Were they called seconds before the second hand was added?

With invention of the pendulum clock in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens, came isochronous time, which became based on a fixed unit interval of 3600 seconds per hour. By 1680, both a minute hand and then a second hand were added. Some of the first of these had a separate dial for the minute hand (turning counter-clockwise), and a second hand that took 5 minutes per cycle. Even as late as 1773, towns were content to order clocks without minute hands.[1] (http://www.electricscotland.com/history/dunfermline/chap8part10.htm)

Early Clock Face with separate minute dial (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on%2Dline/huygens/images/1656face.jpg) - I'd like to add this jpg to article--JimWae 10:46, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

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Old Top

this is a rough outline. please feel free to help fill it in. Kevin Baas -2003.03.17

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That most recent addition looks suspiciously not NPOV, to my eye. Just doing all it can to cast doubt on historical knowledge. -- JohnOwens 22:01 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

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thank you all for contributing. i think, however, that the subject of "time travel" doesn't fit the topic close enough to deserve a body of text in here. remember that this is a history, and is not concerned with possibilities, but rather sensitizing people to how our ideas and perceptions have evolved thru the generations, so that we may better understand where we are now. It is a history of how we have felt time, the role it has played in our daily lives, and the role it has played in our sciences and therefore our beliefs. You are welcome to post a link to a page on time travel on this page, under the "See also" section, and perhaps in the future there will be a section of text where the link would be very appropriate. Let me say again, though, it is off topic. Please move or remove it.

Furthermore, on the further reading section, there's a book that's described as a fiction book, an 'amusing book'. It wasn't my intent when i made this page to be anything but respectably academic. But ofcourse, I didn't expect or intend to mantain control over this page, otherwise i wouldn't have published it here. I think the book should at least be clearly separated from the more technical and academic texts, and clearly identified as 'literature', or whatever is most appropriate. I hereby invoke a request for comment regarding this reference(rfc).

Kevin Baas 2003.03.26

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If you ask me, this is probably the most relevant topic on time that there is, and it belongs in the main Time article. What would anyone say to a merge? Fishal 17:19, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Needs something, anyway. Charles Matthews 19:03, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Time discipline

Finding none here, I recently started an article on the sociological and anthropological concept of time discipline. There seems to be a fair amount of overlap between this article and that'n. Just wanted to raise the question; not sure that the two articles should merge, but they are similar. -- Smerdis of Tlön 00:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)