Do all countries in the world use the same time system?

Question

That being 60 seconds in a min. 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day? Where did this system come from?

Answer 1

All modern countries use the same system of time - based on the 24 hour day, with each hour being 60 minutes, and each minute being 60 seconds.

According to this site, the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians divided the day into 24 hours, based on dividing the night sky into 12 sections for tracking stellar locations.
http://homepage.mac.com/pete.boardman/24hourclock/history.html

The ancient Greeks adopted this system from the Egyptians, and the Romans adopted it from the Greeks. The romans started their hour tracking at sunrise. It wasn't until the advent of mechanical clocks that noon was determined to be the zero hour/12 hour, because midday sun is more consistent for setting the clocks.

The ancient Babylonians divided the hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds, because their counting system was based on factors of 60.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

However there were also other competing time-keeping systems.
Some ancient Egyptians used a day that was divided into 10 parts, and each part was divided into 100 subdivisions, and each of those into another 100 sub-subdivisions.

ancient China divided the day both into 24 hours (shi) and into 100 ke. each ke was divided into 60 fen.

During the French Revolution, there was an effort to adopt a decimal system for time, dividing the day into 10 decimal hours, with each decimal hour divided into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute divided into 100 decimal seconds. It was adopted in 1793, and abandoned in 1795 because it never caught on. (The metric system of other units was adopted in 1790, and so the decimal time system was sort of an extension of that drive to make everything easier and logical). In 1897, the French attempted to decimalize time again, keeping a 24 hour day, but dividing them into 100 minutes, each with 100 seconds. It also was abandoned.

In 1998, Swatch (the watchmaking company), made clocks set for "Swatch Internet Time" dividing a day into 1000 beats, with 000 being midnight in Switzerland, and 500 being noon in Switzerland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time


read more about Hour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour

Answer 2

"The Origin of Hours and Minutes
The Egyptians had ten hours of daylight from sunrise to sunset (exemplified by a sundial described in 1300 B.C.E.), two hours of twilight and twelve hours of night.
The calendar year was divided into 36 decans, each ten days long, plus five extra days, for a 365-day year. Each decan corresponded to a third of a zodiacal sign and was represented by a decanal constellation.

In the summer sky the night corresponded to about twelve decans, although half a day would correspond to eighteen decans. This led to the division of the night into twelve hours.

The first hours were seasonal in that their length varied with the season. (Note that this system was also used in oriental clocks.) Later, Hellenistic astronomers introduced equinoctal hours of equal length.

The Minute and the Second
The Babylonians (about 300-100 B.C.E.) did their astronomical calculations in the sexagesimal (base-60) system. This was extremely convenient for simplifying division, since 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10. The first fractional sexagesimal place we now call a minute, the second place, a second."

Answer 3

Yes, although the French tried to adopt a decimal time system at the time of the revolution, the effort flopped. But the decimal system for measurements of length, weight, and volume caught on. The sexagesimal time system was invented by the ancient Babylonians, and was initially based on the number of days in a year (which they considered to be 360).

Answer 4

Actually, Canada just switched to the 24 hour clock. We used to have only 55 minutes in our hour so we although we had 24 hours, in america 1 hour of canadian time was actually 5 minutes less than an american hour.

Answer 5

When it comes to time on a wrist watch or kitchen clock, the answer is definitely yes. However, when you speak of time, this can also mean length of a year. In this case, time varies. The length of a year differs according to ethnic background. The islamic year and the chinese year differ from the standard used in the US and most western countries.

Answer 6

NO, THERE ARE DEFINITE TIME ZONES. IF IN AMERICA IS DAY IN CHINA IS NIGHT, IF IN AMERICA IS NIGHT IN CHINA IS DAY. AND SAME FOR ALL COUNTRIES LIKE CHINA AND AMERICA, COUNTRIES LIKE ´o'
THIS IS PLANET o
THIS MOON °
THIS SUN O
' IS AMERICA
´ IS CHINA
LOOK DOWN

° ´o' O - day in America, night in china°
° 'o` O - night in america, day in china

Planet is non-stop turning around, but sooooooo slow, sun and moon are on same place.


One min have 60 sec, one h 60 mins, one day 24 h...
all is coming of one year which have 356 days.

Answer 7

As far as I know, Yes.

pasted the paragraph from Wikipedia:

" ............. the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. ............"

Follow the link below for full explanation, details, origin etc.

Answer 8

Basically, yes. Nearly everyone uses standard time.

Answer 9

Yes, because everyone use the time formula.
No, because people in different places have different time zones.

Answer 10

Yes, its the sexagesmial system.