What is Time?

Birmingham, Alabama

Oh my what a deep reaching subject.[1]  David and I could really get deep in this subject, with thoughts and ideas that would just blow you all away. But it is certainly a subject that is as old as time. You could spend your entire life just studying on the subject or "Horology" and never have a total scope of it all.  Can you remember when you first were taught what time was?  My father taught me how to till time, by the 24 clock. I remember in school there was a 24 hour clock on the wall just behind the teachers desk. Why did we have to say it was xx "O'Clock"?  On the question of why we say xx"O'Clock"  it is where the current time is in relation to the top of the hour.  Example : 3 O'Clock is 3 hours past 12 O'Clock. 

Why did Mariners tell time by bells?  Bells were chimed every 30 minutes on-board a ship as well as many abbeys. So that is 2 bells per hour. So 6 bells would be 3 hours past 12 O'Clock. This is because they used 30 minute "Sandglasses" or commonly known as a "hourglass".   The "Ship's Bell" system of chimes evolved from a crude sand clock dating back to the time of Columbus. This primitive clock was called a sand or sand glass clock, and was an essential device for marking the time at sea.

Records of epic voyages tell us about this device and how the helmsman used it to measure time in half-hour increments. Watches or shifts were organized into increments of four hours; a custom that is still widely used. With the sandglass at his side, the helmsman would signal the passing of half-hour increments starting with the strike of one bell at the end of the first half hour, two at second and so on until reaching eight bells, which signaled the end of the watch.

The tradition of the sand clock continued for hundreds of years and was replaced only by the development of the mechanical clock. But, it was not until the 19th century that the first mechanical ship's bell clock was produced in America. The principle of this American innovation remains almost unchanged to this day.[2]

Later in life I was fascinated by H.G. Wells book which was turned into a 1960 movie, with Rod Taylor. "The Time Machine".  I was in high school, when I saw this movie 10 years later and H.G. Wells wrote this book back before the turn of the century in 1895.   Here is the pdf version of the book "The Time Machine".  I never get tired of reading this book or watching the 1960 movie version of this great book by H.G. Wells. Of course H.G. Wells had many other great books.  He left a great wealth of reading and has inspired many others.

The Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were also big into time and calendars as well. They entwined they religion and their calendars together. They place us at the year 5511 [3], that is twice as far back as other calendar histories go.  The movie "2012" (2009) is partially based on these calendars. For more on the subject of the year 2012 click on "All About 2012",  [4] this is very interesting reading. And take a look at this amazing calendar in action.  Is Time linear or cyclical, I think only YHWH know for sure.  The idea of time having a beginning and a end, or does time have cycles of beginning and end.  Since I believe life (or energy or our spirit) never ends but is always  here in one form or another I believe in the calendar wheels [5] that never end but just restart over.  After all is that not what happens every day the clock keeps going around and around. 

Religion even deals with time as in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  You know I always heard these phrases but never really knew we they came from.

There is an appointed time (zman) for everything. And there is a time (’êth) for every event under heaven–

A time (’êth) to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.

A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.

A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.

A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 


One of my favorite quotes:


"There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it." 
(The Time Traveler - Chapter One, Pg. 3)

Notes:
[1]Much of my material comes from the internet. Wikipedia being my main source, and this link.  
[2] http://bellclocks.com/shipsbellhistory.html
[3] http://www.peru-travel-confidential.com/inca-calendar.html
[4] http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm
[5] http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-calendar-wheels.html