3093:Lower Plenty/11:24:50pm [The passage of time]

It was the ancient Egyptians who first divided the day into 24 hour increments. The night had twelve hours which were determined by the position of the stars and the hour before and after sunset were considered the two hours of twilight. The remaining ten daylight hours were measured using shadow clocks – the forerunner of the sundial. The Egyptians were not alone however, as rudimentary measurers of time were being used by the Chinese, Greeks, Baylonians and those ubiquitous, finger-in-every-pie, Romans. Shadow clocks were doomed to a short life as the limitations of not being able to tell the time at night were obvious. This 18th century example of a pendulum clock, developed thanks to an observant Galileo being distracted by a swinging chandelier in church, these days casts a shadow only because of the presence of the overhead lights.

279. Shadows

~ by korechronicles on April 13, 2009.