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Stefan_S_from_H@piefed.zip to Showerthoughts@lemmy.worldEnglish · 8 hours ago

Whoever invented the 12-hour clock never doubted that people will always know if it's day or night

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Whoever invented the 12-hour clock never doubted that people will always know if it's day or night

Stefan_S_from_H@piefed.zip to Showerthoughts@lemmy.worldEnglish · 8 hours ago
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  • limer@lemmy.ml
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    34 minutes ago

    Wow, am I the only person on lemmy to grow up before any digital clocks, where all the clocks were 12 hours ? Yes, yes I am

    • titanicx@lemmy.zip
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      12 minutes ago

      There are 24 hour analog clocks dude.

  • biofaust@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    AM/PM time is another thing that needs to sink with the USA, just like the Imperial system and Fahrenheit.

    • SolidShake@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      What’s wrong with AM/PM lol. How many countries use 24h? Honesty, because I actua lly never thought about it before.

  • dan1101@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I took a nap one time on a spring afternoon and woke up at 6:00. Only I wasn’t sure if it was afternoon or I slept all night until morning. Weird feeling.

  • Pearl@lemmy.ml
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    2 hours ago

    12 clock is easier to read at a distance.

    Digital clocks handle 24 pretty well

  • zerozaku@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Honestly my mind has been tweaking lately ever since I started working. I’m under artificial lights all day long and sometimes I have no clue when I see “9:00” if it’s night or morning for at least 5secs. I really hate how my phone doesn’t show AM PM either.

    Also using 24hrs clock really puts the time spent in the day into perspective. 9pm doesn’t look as daunting as “you’re 21hrs” into the day.

  • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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    8 hours ago

    Clocks were sundials.

    If you can see the time, it’s not night.

    • procrastitron@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      100% This.

      Also, being an evolution of sundials is the reason all analog clocks move their hands in the same direction.

      • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        So you’re saying clockwise can also be called sundialwise?

        • village604@adultswim.fan
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          4 hours ago

          Or just sunwise

      • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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        7 hours ago

        *Being evolution of sundials located on the northern hemisphere.

      • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social
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        7 hours ago

        Not all, but most

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I present to you, illuminated clocks!

      crowd gasps MY UNIVERSE IS COLLAPSING the crowd starts screaming and lighting things on fire

      • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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        6 hours ago

        …and then they noticed: “Damn, we could have lit everything on fire and seen our clocks in the night time millenia ago!”

        • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Galaxy brain time

      • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Your sundial still isn’t showing time.

        • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          It’s showing a time

        • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Clocks, not sundials

          • moody@lemmings.world
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            5 hours ago

            The lights go out, and I can’t be saved
            Tides that I tried to swim against

      • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        How are the illuminated clocks able to comprehend your presentation?

        • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Magic ✨

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I still don’t know why everyone doesn’t just use the 24-hour clock. It’s so much easier.

    It’s like someone had doubts people could count much past 12, so just had them do that twice. Or maybe Big Clock didn’t want to manufacture 24 hour faces and sold the lie.

    • kaulquappus@feddit.org
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      7 hours ago

      As for the clock face, a 12 hour face is much easier to read at a glance or from a distance.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      one thing that I’m proud of my team at work for is just defaulting to using 24hr time when adding timestamps to filenames. I require datestamps, but there are no rules on timestamps if there are multiple files for that day. and a few of them just started appending the time in 24 hour format. I was so proud.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      5 hours ago

      I dont like the look of the numbers

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It’s like someone had doubts people could count much past 12

      More like the people who invented a lot of shit used base 12.

      Things restarting at 12, is because the thing is so old, it predates base 10.

      Like, pick a language, count to thirteen:

      Ein, zwei, drei, fire, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zein, elf, zwolf, dreizein…

      One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…

      Notice how 11 and 12 aren’t one-teen and two-teen?

      On each hand is 4 sets of 3 knuckles, touch your thumb to each knuckle and your finger counting on one hand higher than we can with two. Pretty sure there’s some pretty neat math tricks with their method too, almost like built in abacus.

      But all this is off memory.

      • The_Decryptor@aussie.zone
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        3 hours ago

        More like the people who invented a lot of shit used base 12.

        I thought we got it from the Babylonians, turns out we actually got it from the Ancient Egyptians.

        At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise, which occurred around the all-important annual flooding of the Nile, 12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens. The cosmic significance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in which each interval of darkness (and later, each interval of daylight) was divided into a dozen equal parts.

        Nope, it’s just down to how many “decans” you could see at any one point during the night.

      • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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        7 hours ago

        Ein, zwei, drei, fire, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zein, elf, zwolf, dreizein…

        One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…

        Yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä, viisi, kuusi, seitsemän, kahdeksan, yhdeksän, kymmenen, yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista…

        (though, notice that our words for “eight” and “nine” are derived from those for “two” and “one”. We used base 8 before migrating to Europe and applying the local standard. Then it was "two left until the new ten and “one left until the new ten”
        With base 8 you can use your fingers to count up to 24 because you can use your thumbs for marking the “tens”. Or to 32, but that already takes a little bit of an effort because from my perspective your left thumb is on the right.)

        But yeah, base 10 is the worst. 12 can be divided by 3 without problems. And base 8 allows counting far higher with just fingers.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Still better than Danish…

          /s

          But yeah thanks! When I saw it was Finns I checked the Danes because they’re always doing their own thing, they go by 20s, so tens alternate “half 20s”.

      • wiccan2@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        The cool math trick I know of is using your other hand to count groups of 12, 5 fingers times 12 knuckles is 60.

    • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      It’s not called Big Clock, it’s called Big Ben /j

      • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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        6 hours ago

        Um akshually, Big Ben is the bell. The clock is just “The Great Clock of Westminster.” And the tower itself is called “Elizabeth Tower.”

        (But everyone just calls the whole thing Big Ben.)

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Big Clock

      looks at London and it’s big clock you, have been, REVEALED

  • oni ᓚᘏᗢ@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    • Steve@startrek.website
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      5 hours ago

      Hmmm 4 20

      • treadful@lemmy.zip
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        3 hours ago

        Weed time

    • morto@piefed.social
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      5 hours ago

      beautiful

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    8 hours ago

    12h clocks are 24h clocks if you just keep counting.

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