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The Sands of
Time
The major fault with
sundials and shadow
clocks is obvious - they don't work
at night! Amenophis (Amen-o-s) I, the king of Egypt,
wanted to know what time it was all through the night
without having to check the position of the stars. As you
can imagine, it would be inconvenient to get up and out
of bed every time you wanted to know the time.
So, Prince Amenemhet (Amen-m-hey) made the king
a clepsydra or a water clock. He took a big bucket and
lled it with water up to a specic line. He then cut a
small hole in the bottom of the bucket and marked off
lines on the bucket after each hour had passed.
There were, of course, some problems with this water
clock as well. Water would ow more slowly or quickly
when the temperature changed. This is where sand
came into effect. The inventor of the sand clock is
unknown but the sand clock or hourglass was commonly
used in ancient times and is still used today. They are
often found in board games or are used as kitchen
timers. Is there an hourglass in your home?
Saving Daylight:
HISTORY:
Ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in a
practice similar to modern Daylight Saving where they
would change their daily schedules in accordance to the
sun.
Benjamin Franklin is often credited with being the
inventor of Daylight Saving. In 1784 he suggested
people could cut back on the use of candles by rising
earlier in the morning and making use of the morning
sunlight.
Another major contributor to the invention of Daylight
Saving was New Zealand entomologist (a person
who focuses specically on the study of
insects) George Vernon Hudson. In
1895, Hudson proposed a two-hour
shift forward in October and a
two-hour shift back in March. He
followed up his proposal with an
article in 1898, and although there was
interest in the idea, it was never followed
through.
During the First World War, Germany
introduced a Daylight Saving program
to save power. They ordered everyone
to set their clocks ahead by one hour, or
one hour ahead of standard Sun time.
who created a twenty-four hour day. Time was a little bit different in
those days. The night was divided up into twelve hours, which were
designated by the position of stars in the sky. The day was divided into
ten hours and a shadow clock was used to keep track of these hours.
The twilight hours were the hours before dawn and after sunset.
The Egyptians thought they were the rst to invent the shadow clock,
but they were mistaken. At the same time, the Chinese, Babylonians,
Greeks and the Romans were using instruments to tell time.
Sundials were used in some of these groups, not because they
worked better, just because that's how they decided to tell time.
After a while, the Egyptians and other ancient societies realised
that the sun rose and set in different places in the summer and
winter. In fact, the sun never took the same course on any
one day throughout the year! They tried everything, until
they realised that if they would just put the post of the
sundial in at a special angle, it would work all year.
that
The rst mechanical clocks had a weight
da
move
h
whic
gears
ng
movi
r,
lowe
y
would slowl
be
only
could
They
hand which showed the hour.
ed
need
hts
weig
the
use
beca
rs
towe
tall
built in
would
to fall a great distance or else the clocks
time.
of
nt
amou
short
a
for
only work
People were amazed that these clocks were
only off about two hours a day. Think if our
were
clocks today were off by that much? If we
it on
e
blam
could
we
ol,
scho
for
late
two hours
urate
inacc
were
s
the clock. While these clock
such
long ago, some of them were created with
,
andy
Norm
In
.
today
care that they still work
1389.
in
built
was
that
s
exist
clock
big
a
e,
Franc
t
In Salisbury, England you can see the oldes
oo
cuck
y,
Toda
.
1386
in
built
,
world
the
in
clock
g
oppin
ht-dr
weig
a
clocks are still built using
mechanism.
Galileo's Discovery
Galileo made an amazing contribution to the
world of time, simply by not paying attention
in church. The year was 1581 and Galileo was
17. He was standing in the Cathedral of Pisa
in Italy watching the huge chandelier swinging
back and forth from the ceiling of the cathedral.
Galileo noticed that no matter how short or long
the arc of the chandelier was, it took exactly
the same amount of time to complete a full
swing. The chandelier gave Galileo the idea to
create a pendulum clock. While the clock would
eventually runout of of energy, it would
keep accurate time until the
pendulum stopped. If the pendulum
was set swinging again before it
stopped, there would never be
a loss in accuracy. Because of
this, pendulums caught on and
are still widely used today. Can
you imagine making such a big
discovery?
Timely Tasks..
s
. Stick
Take a ball of clay and atten into a circle
middle of
an icy pole stick straight up on end in the
of the
the clay. Place the sundials in a sunny area
ial, every
sund
their
mark
nts
stude
Have
.
round
playg
next
The
clay.
the
on
hour where the shadow falls,
tell
them
have
and
de
outsi
nts
stude
day take the
time using the sundial.
WEB LINKS:
http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/
http://www..edu/time/Journey/JustInTime/contents.html
s
s
http://classroom.jc-schools.net/basic/math-time.html
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Jesse/CLOCK1A.html