So I was thinking
.
"How did the people that created the first clock, Know what time it was....?
.
.
.
??
Anybody?

lets think about it together

Make i help you....


The first timekeeping devices weren't clocks, they were calendars that were used to track the passage of a year.

Ancient astronomers would have noticed the 12 lunar cycles that occurred within a year.

Historians believe that this number 12 was given a special significance, because when the Civilizations in Egypt, Sumer and India developed their first devices to measure fractions of a day, they designed their sundials so that the period from dawn to dusk was sectioned into 12 equal parts.

When they extrapolated to the night time, they would make it also 12 parts, to mirror the daytime.

China was a little different - they spilt their entire day into 12 parts.

Still, that's how they determined what time it was on their first clocks. It was likely an arbitrary distinction that paid homage to the 12 lunar cycles.


#UzoMedia

This is a good question as it helps one think from first principles instead of the rote learning and memorization that our educational system feeds us.

...just to add to the erudite speaker above me:

12 noon is described ( from the times of ancient astronomy) as the moment the sun is directly over your head (or in the case of temperate lands, the highest it climbs from the horizon before its descent to the west), in its daily motion from East to West. So the visible marker for a day becomes from 12 noon of one day to 12 noon of the subsequent day ( later modified to 12 midnight).

once you have defined a day, and identified a starting point, you can break it down into any fractions that may be convenient.

Lalasticlala, myndd44, ishilove...morning boss, we need more hands on this

Onyejemechimere:
So I was thinking
.
"How did the people that created the first clock, Know what time it was....?
.
.
.
??
Anybody?

I like people like u who think deep

Dem guess.

They use shadow from the sundial .A sundial is a device that tells the time of day by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word it consists of a flat plate and a gnomon .
The shadow-casting object, known as a gnomon, may be a long thin rod or other object with a sharp tip or a straight edge. As the sun appears to move across the sky, the shadow aligns with different hour-lines which are marked on the dial to indicate the time of day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, though a single point or nodus may be used. The gnomon casts a broad shadow; the shadow of the style shows the time. The gnomon may be a rod, a wire or an elaborately decorated metal casting. The style must be parallel to the axis of the Earth's rotation for the sundial to be accurate throughout the year. The style's angle from horizontal is equal to the sundial's geographical latitude.
Sundials employ many types of gnomon. The gnomon may be fixed or moved according to the season. It may be oriented vertically, horizontally, aligned with the Earth's axis, or oriented in an altogether different direction determined by mathematicson which casts a shadow onto the dial.
Given that sundials use light to indicate time, a line of light may be formed by allowing the sun's rays through a thin slit or focusing them through a cylindrical lens. A spot of light may be formed by allowing the sun's rays to pass through a small hole or by reflecting them from a small circular mirror.