The Humble Hour
I started wondering a few days ago why our time--in Western culture, at least--is organized around the hour.
When I was in junior high and high school, all of classes were based on an hour--55 minute classes, 5 minutes to get to the next class. Television is based on the hour, too.
Other things. Openings and closing of businesses. The vast majority of them open and close on the hour.
Child sport practices, too. Almost every introductory level to a sport has hour-long sessions.
I could keep going, but you see what I mean. And why is an hour sixty minutes long?
I started poking around and found this: The ancient, brilliant reason we divide days into 60-minute hours and 60-second minutes. It's fascinating, and here are a few short hits:
--originally, a day was divided into 24 segments by the ancient "Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks). However, these segments were NOT of uniform length.
--Greek astronomers in the Hellinistic period first proposed fixed length hours to assist in their calculations.
--hours of fixed length only started commonly appearing in the 14th century "after mechanical clocks first appeared in Europe."
I did not find a clear answer as to why so much of what we do is organized by the hour. Still hunting around for a good explanation.
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