THIS IS THE TIME TO KNOW ABOUT TIME

“Time and tide wait for no man” is an ancient English proverb which stresses more on the importance of time. Time has a great impact in everyone’s life and work. Time is one of the critical factors which should be managed effectively for increased output. But there are still several mysteries related to time like “Why time flies faster sometimes and slower sometimes?”, “Why do we have 365 days in a year?”, “Why do we have 12 months in a year?”, “Why do we have 30 or 31 days in a month?”, “Why do we have 7 days in a week?”, “Why do we have 24 hours in a day?”, “Why do we have 60 minutes in an hour?”, “Why do we have 60 seconds in a minute?”. And even some may wonder why most of the clocks shown in advertisement show the time’10:10’a.m. This post explains briefly about the science and history behind each of the above-mentioned questions.

Time is a mystery

Does time fly faster sometimes?

The great scientist Albert Einstein explained about the relationship between time and the speed of the object. He said in his theory of relativity as “The faster an object moves; the time slows up for the object”. The above-mentioned statement is just a theory with several objections and criticization. But when we look into our lives, we sometimes feel that good times pass away sooner while the bad times stay longer even if both the incidents have the same duration. Some researchers state that as an Illusion. You have to accomplish more work when you get older and older. But still you have the same time which leads to an increase in ‘Time pressure’. Other researchers suggest this phenomenon as an aging effect. There are two sets of time available. One is the ‘Clock time’ and the another one is the ‘Mind time’. As we get older, the mind time gets to slow down linearly and will lead to the fact that time goes faster. This is the main reason for the wide usage of this phrase mostly by older people and busy people.

Time Goes on without a pause

Why do we have 365 days in a year?

Before exploring the answer, it is necessary for us to know why it was necessary to have a calendar in ancient times.

Calendar was created for the basic purpose to know the arrival of seasons accurately. Prediction of the seasons will be much beneficial for the people as it helps them to sow the seeds accordingly with the season. Sowing the seeds in the wrong season may lead to heavy loss either by rain or extreme heat. So, it was much necessary for the ancient tribes to create a calendar for season-prediction. The primary seasons considered at that time were Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. And people prefer to sow the seeds between Spring and early Summer.

A ‘Year’ is regarded as the time required by earth to revolve around the sun and to come back to the same position where it was at present. The 365-day per year calculation was made by several tribes but the most notable one was Maya civilization and Ancient Egyptians. Calendars of both tribes had 365 days and the year is called as ‘Solar year’ as the calculation is based on the location of Sun with respect to the location of other planets like earth. As the earth takes 365.242 days for one complete revolution, days were added up as an error as each and every year passed by. This led to the failure of effective prediction of seasons. So, during 45 B.C, the Roman emperor Julius Caesar brought the term ‘Leap year’ to add up that one day for every four years. Also, there are some interesting facts that took place at that time.

1. The first two months (January, February) are added at last but placed at the front of calendar.
2. The 7th and 8th month were renamed as July and August to honour the then Roman emperor Julius Caesar and his successor Augustus Caesar and these two consecutive months have 31 days.

The average days per year for Julian calendar is 365.25 days. Though it was nearly accurate, further correction was made by Pope Gregory in 1582. He stated that the leap day will be added for every four years but the leap day will not be added up in ‘centuries’ (e.g. 100,200,300,500….) other than those that are divisible by 400. For detailed explanation, as per Julian calendar, a day will be added during 1100,1200,1300 etc. (since all of them are divisible by 4). But as per Gregorian calendar, a day will be added only for the year 1200 (since only 1200 is divisible by 400). This made the average days per year as 365.2425 which is even accurate than Julian calendar. Also, the modern calendar that we follow is Gregorian Calendar.

Why do we have 12 months in a year?

As per the previous passage, the solar calendar was followed to predict seasons. But the Ancient Egyptians also started to study the ‘Lunar cycle’. The lunar cycle is the time required for a moon to undergo phase transition and return back to the actual phase. This can be well explained as the time interval between a Full moon day and its successive Full moon day or a No moon day and its successive No moon day. This generally takes upto 29.53 days. So, the earlier 10-month system was followed based on lunar cycles as 10 complete lunar cycles were completed in a year of 305 days. Some civilizations like Babylonian civilization even had 13 months as 13 lunar cycles would occur in a solar year. But later on, with the change in calendar system by Julius Caesar, the lunar cycles were ignored and two months were added. And that’s how the present 12-month system came into existence. But even before the Julian calendar, 12 months system was followed by Sumerians with 29 or 30 days per month. The 12-month system proved to be very useful for the all the calculations as they are easily divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12 which is far better than the 13-month system.

Moon determines Months

Why do we have 30 or 31 days in a month?

The ancient calendar considered the time taken for the completion for one lunar cycle as a ‘month’ – which came from the root word ‘moon’. But they were instable as there are no accurate lunar cycles for a solar year. So, with the modification of calendar by Caesar, days were randomly added to months which previously had 29 or 31 days. The month February was also added by him and the leap day was added to it which is being followed till date.

Why do we have 7 days in a week?

There are several reasons by tribes for accepting the 7 day per week system. But Ancient Egyptians initially considered 10 days per week. This was based on their knowledge on ‘Astrology’ about the constellations called ‘Decans’. A Decan is a group of 10 stars. Each decan will be present in the sky for 10 days till it was replaced with another decan. There were 36 decans which were useful for ancient Egyptians to determine time for 360 days. It was the Ancient Babylonians who get credit for 7-day week. The Ancient World believed 7 to be a lucky number. The Jews and The Christians accepted 7-day week as according to their scriptures, God created the living beings and all their essential sources for 6 days and he rested on the 7th day.   But it was not the reason why Babylon framed up 7-day week system. The Ancient Babylonians had a greater knowledge in astronomy and astrological sciences. They coined the number ‘7’ as seven celestial bodies can be seen from the Earth – The Sun, The Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. There is another fact which might surprise you. Even Calendar followed by Ancient Tamil culture (Who were no way related to Babylonian civilization) had 7 days in their week system and these 7 days are named after the above mentioned 7 Celestial bodies. The Gregorian calendar which we follow has days named after Roman and Norse Gods.

Why do we have 24 hours in a day?

A Day refers to the time which is required by our planet Earth to complete one rotation on its own axis. The Ancient Egyptian civilization divided a day into two parts, each consisting of 12 hours. They designated 12 hours for ‘Daytime’ and 12 hours for ‘Night’. But we know that the duration of ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ are not constant and they change from season to season. This is well explained by the fact that, during summer daytime will be longer than usual and during winter night time will be longer than usual. The duration of Daytime and Night-time will be equal only at special occasions called as ‘Equinoxes’. Yet everyone adopted the system as we know that 24 has more factors (2,3,4,6,8,12,24) and this made the calculations simpler.

Why do we have 60 minutes in an hour?

This credit of dividing an hour into 60 parts goes to the Ancient Babylonians. We all are well aware of Ancient Egyptians and their marvellous history. But who are these Ancient Babylonians who have contributed much to this time system?? Babylonians belong to the Mesopotamian civilization which was started by the river banks of the great river Euphrates which is nothing but the modern-day Iraq.  They are well known for their astrological and astronomical calculations. The number system by which the hour was divided into 60 parts was called as Sexagesimal which is a number system with the base-60. This method, though implemented by Babylonians was actually found by the Ancient Sumerians who date back to 3rd millennium B.C. It was accepted widely because of the same reason, the Factors (2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20,30,60) which makes calculations simpler.

Why do we have 60 seconds in a minute?

A ‘Second’ is the Second division of hour. The answer is similar to that of the above question and it was developed by the Ancient Babylonians. The present scientific definition for a ‘second’ is now stated as the time duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation corresponding to transition between two small splits energy levels of ground state of Caesium-133 atom at -273.15 degree Celsius.

Why most of the clocks shown in advertisement show the time’10:10’a.m.?

I can still remember the days in my childhood when I kept asking everyone why the clock in my book cover always showed 10:10 a.m. Even most of us would have came across a clock or watch advertisement which shows the time 10:10 am. There are several myths stating that “10:10 a.m. was the time when watch was invented” and “10:10 a.m. is the time of Former U.S president Abraham Lincoln’s death “. But the actual science fact behind that was ‘Symmetry’. If the clock is tuned up to 10:10 a.m., the brand name along with the special features will be well visible to the customers and this symmetric look will give a positive and good look to the clock or watch.

Most clocks ad shows 10.10 am

Conclusion

This post would have enlightened you and would have revealed the exact true reason in spite of several rumours and myths that we’ve come across. Kindly read other posts in our blog and share this valuable information to your friends and family.