The first mechanical clocks were invented in Europe in the early 14 th century, such as the Astronomical Clock of Prague, designed in 1410, making it the third-oldest clock in the world and the oldest clock that is still operational. It was invented to balance out the flaws of its predecessors. However it was also flawed and was soon replaced by the Gregorian calendar, named after its inventor Pope Gregory XIII, and this is the calendar still used today. Its successor was the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar, was invented as a solution to the discrepancies of its predecessor. With the establishment of the Roman Republic, the calendar was exploited by the pontifices and years were often re-dated or altered to lengthen the ruling term of the (then) current leader. This calendar wasn’t very accurate and needed to be recalculated quite often to keep up pace with the lunar year. Let’s have a look at the Roman Calendar, invented by the Roman kings Romulus and Numa Pompilius for an example. Time has for thousands of years also been used a powerful political tool. Reproduction of Fasti Antiates of the Roman Calendar, 84 – 55 BC. Neolithic structures were built by our ancestors to measure time – Stonehenge, for example, was used to track the midwinter solstice and welcome the new season. mechanically geared clock that runs on the energy generated by running water) was also invented as early as the 3 rd century BC. Water clocks known as clepsydra (believed to be invented in ancient Babylon) were used extensively in ancient Greece, where the earliest-known clock with a water-powered escapement (i.e. Early humans in what is now central Europe measured the passage of time by carving the movements of the sun and moon into mammoth tusks. We know the ancient Egyptians invented the first sun-dials, known as “shadow clocks”, dating to around the same period and the Mayans invented one of the earliest known calendars. In fact, records the earliest instrument used to measure time was a vertical stick called “gnomon”, who’s length of shadow was used to indicate the time, all the way back in 3500 BCE. So how did our ancient predecessors keep track of time? We know they measured time by the sun, moon and stars as well as by natural seasonal changes. The ancient Greeks understood time as two different concepts – Chronos or chronological time and Kairos – metaphysical or “Divine” time. The Judeo-Christian belief that time is linear can be derived from the book of Genesis: “And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light on the earth.” This explanation led them to believe that day is always followed by night because that is how it was created.On the other hand, the Mayans kept track of time with three different calendars, most notably the Long Calendar responsible for the 2012 apocalyptic predictions, and marked the passage of time and major events with glyphs. How the ancients perceived time is as unique as the inventions they used to measure it. Does time move differently for other people than it does for me? Who even invented “time”? How do I know if five minutes for me feels the same as five minutes does for someone else? How do I even begin to describe what five minutes “feels” like? What about when you take a flight from one time-zone and end up landing in a whole other time-zone that’s four hours ahead of the one you just left…is that time-travel? WAIT A MINUTE…DID I JUST TRAVEL IN TIME?! If you’ve ever had your head explode with meta (sorry, I am a millennial after all) questions like these, then let me assure you, you aren’t alone.ĭoctor Who, Season 3, Episode 10 “Blink”. The more I learned, the more I wanted to question it. The idea of “time”, as I learned through these fictitious works therefore seemed rather fluid to me. My fascination with the concept of time began at a young age, having grown up reading a lot of sci-fi, space and time-travel literature and obsessively binge-watching (and re-watching) episodes of the classic British TV show Doctor Who, about an alien Time Lord that visits different planets and travels in time. By Lianne Oonwalla, an Indian student in Germany.
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