Why is it that the snooze alarm is 9 minutes? Why not just 10 minutes or something?

Answer 1

I thought everyone knew the answer to this!!!

When you were kids, didn't you all take apart clocks?

They put a kinda gear ring thing (never formally studied clocks) that has 9 teeth and it's a really cheap looking thing.

And voila, an extra marketable feature.

If you swop it for a more robust 9 tooth thing (robbed from another clock) it starts to mean the clock loses time, so I guess that it would be a big engineering challenge to put in a stronger metal, which would allow it to have more teeth, cos the more teeth you put in a cog, the weaker it gets.

So that's why it's not more than 10 minutes.

The reason why it's not less than 10 minute is because the assemblies of most clocks can't handle complex gear shifts if you start moving away from 9/10/11 teeth cogs. It is theoretically possible and has been done to use different numbers, but they are really complex mechs.

I always presumed digital clock makers were just following tradition, but a quick google of some terms came up with this interesting article, which pretty much confirms the substance of my own theory...

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0903/glad_u_asked092403.asp

(Don't ask me why the JWR addressed this issue!)

Anyway, it's a good article, if you really want to know.

Answer 2

Set Alarm For 11 Minutes

Answer 3

Have you ever noticed that when you know you have to get up for something your body automatically wakes itself up within a certain time period around when you need to get up? Same thing. Your mind automatically sets itself to think in terms of 5 to 10 minutes. So once your alarm goes off, the second time around your body is going to think that it will go off in 10 minutes and thus may sleep through it. No matter how hard you try you can't convince yourself that the alarm is going off in 9 minutes rather than 10, or even 7 or 8. This shocks your body awake. It's annoying I know, but it works!

Answer 4

Snooze alarms used to be 10 minutes until national legislation in the 1830s made them conform to a national standard of exactly 9 minutes. In Hawaii they are allowed to sleep 11 minutes due to the laid-back lifestyle, but this is the only exception.

www.snoozealarmhistory.com

Answer 5

It is always an odd number because people start work or leave for work usually on an even time, like 8:00, so if they hit the snooze at 7:30, the third time they would already be late for work. This way, on the third time it would be 7:57, so you have 3 min. to come up with a lame excuse and call in later......

or something

Answer 6

I can set my snooze alarm anywhere from 5 to 10 min. What 10 more min. of sleep does, I have no idea.

Answer 7

I know. It's nuts. I have one with a 7 minute snooze. I used to have one where you could program how long a snooze. That was a good one. Lost it in the divorce.

Answer 8

I suppose we are really not meant to hit the snooze button. We are just to pop up out of bed. (Time is a wasting.)
Unfortunately I can't do that I end up hitting the button at least three times, but to ensure that I am not late for anything, I set my alarm clock only 15 minutes ahead so I really save time.

Answer 9

They are all set at different times from about 5 to 9 minutes. I think they feel like a person would get to soundly back to sleep and turn off their alarm completely and be late.

Answer 10

My alarm clock lets you set the amount of time the snooze is. Maybe you should hit the store and get yourself a better alarm clock.