Response to articles for Monday September 21

 Main Idea

It is explained in these two articles that the methods we use to measure time have come to us by many different civilizations. Egyptians have thought to construct the 24-hour day, and Sumerians and Babylonians invented the base-60 which shows an hour has 60 minutes and a minute has 60 seconds.

How the systems developed

The first article elaborates how Egyptians divided daylight and night into 12 parts using sundials and by observing stars. As a result a 24-hour day was produced. But summer hours were longer than winter hours. After that Greek astronomers invented 24 equal-length, 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Equal hours did not become common for ordinary people until mechanical clocks were invented in Europe after many centuries.

The Babylonians inherited base 60 number system from the Sumerians and used it positionally, similar to decimal numbers today.

The articles suggest several possible explanations for the use of 60:

Sixty can be divided evenly by many numbers, including 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.

It is useful for representing fractions.

It may have developed from a combination of base-12 and base-5 counting systems.

It may have been connected to finger counting, trade, weights, measurements or astronomy.

But the second article explains that the exact reason why Sumerians began using base 60 is not known. It

could have developed from everyday counting and cultural exchange.

Connections to personal experience

According to my experience, I use time constantly for school, birthdays, holidays and planning. However, the articles show that these categories were created by human societies and do not fit perfectly with nature.

In my opinion a calendar is a practical system rather than a perfect reflection of astronomical events. My experience of an hour also depends on what I am doing. There are different ways of experiencing time: clock time is standardized, while personal time is subjective.

I Also imagine a year as a circle which begins with January, and then returns to January. This circle represents the movement of seasons. At the same time, my personal life feels more linear because I move from one grade, birthday or stage of life to the next. Therefore, I think of time as a circle and a linear line as well.

Inconsistencies between the articles

The articles focus on different aspects of the history of time measurement. One possible inconsistency is that the first article presents the usefulness of 60 for fractions as an important explanation, while the second article warns that this explanation may be too simple. saying that the Egyptians invented the modern 24-hour day would be somewhat misleading. They created an early division of the day, but not the equal hours.

Another difference is about the number 12. The first article connects 12 to Egyptian timekeeping and gives possible explanations involving lunar cycles and finger joints. The second article explains that base 60 may have resulted from a combination of base 12 and base 5. These explanations are not necessarily contradictory, but they show that the origin of these systems is uncertain and may involve several factors.

The articles also reveal that the modern idea of a fixed hour developed much later than the original idea of dividing the day into 24 parts. Early Egyptian hours changed length depending on the season. Thus, saying that the Egyptians invented the modern 24-hour day would be somewhat misleading. They created an early division of the day, but not the equal hours used by modern clocks.

Surprising ideas

The most surprising idea is that an hour was not always a fixed period of 60 minutes. In ancient Egypt, an hour during the summer could be longer than an hour during the winter. I usually think of an hour as an objective and unchanging unit, so it is interesting that this idea developed gradually.

I was also surprised that minutes and seconds were originally connected to the measurement of angles. Babylonian and Greek astronomers divided circles into 360 degrees and then divided each degree into 60 smaller parts. The terms “minute” and “second” came from these subdivisions. This means that the structure of a clock is connected not only to astronomy but also to geometry.

Another surprising point is that Babylonian numerals used only two basic symbols to create a base-60 positional system. Although 60 sounds like it would require many symbols, the positional system allowed the Babylonians to construct numbers efficiently. However, the absence of a zero caused serious ambiguity. For example, the same basic representation could potentially mean 1 or 60, depending on its position and context. 

The articles also made me reconsider the idea that modern time measurement is inevitable. We could have used different systems. For example, an hour could have been divided into 100 minutes, just as a meter is divided into 100 centimetres. Instead, historical traditions preserved the divisions of 24 and 60.

Conclusion

These articles show that time measurement developed from a combination of observation, mathematics, culture and practical The readings changed my understanding of time because they showed that a calendar,  and season are not perfect copies of nature. They are human tools for organizing. My own experience confirms this: time can be measured precisely by a clock, but it can also feel different depending on the activity.