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.

[ScoobyDooCruiser]

Also, interesting to note why time was divided using the base 60 and 12 number systems (that the wikipedia article didn't answer) is because 360 is close to 365. Thus, early western atronomers (Ptolemy mainly) chose the 360 as easy, hence the 60 base. The great sphere (aka the sky, or heavens) move about 1° a day if you have 360° be a full circle. From this convention of 360 for a full circle, a base 60 system was convenient. Thus... as said above... convention, by means of the base 60 system, determined the second.

So, why is a second a second? Well... because the number 365 is close to 360.