have you ever wonder "what makes a second...a second?", wayyyy off topic Options

[lubu]

I was driving home one day in my belove celica....a question popped up in my head "what makes a second, a second"??...i know there are atomic clocks that miss a second in like 1 million year but how did we even measure a second in the first place...?

Now, a day consists of 24 hours and 1hr=3600 seconds. But we could have had 12 hours in a day and keep the same duration of a second so the number of seconds would still be 3600..it just takes twice as long to move a second to a second...so how and what instument were used to measure a second??

Imagine a second's duration were 10 times faster than today than one would says "yez..my celica can do 0-60mph in abt 60 seconds.." LOL ...yep thats a minute.

[phonex98]

what culpable said. Goes like this

We know one day (time that it takes for the sun to 'move' one rotation around the earth)(Yes i know i said sun and move). divide one day into 24 partitions. We get hours. Divide those hours into 60 partitions. We get minutes. Divide those AGAIN.. and BAM.. you get a second So yes. its the distance we see the sun move.. or as culpable said, a specific rotation of the earth!