Who invented the system we use today to measure time, and how did they determine the duration that a second...

Question

would have?

Note: I'm not talking about the clocks we use, but the system of hours, minutes and seconds.

Answer 1

The system in use today is derived from international standards. The second could be defined as 1/86400 of a standard day. The current standard is based on oscillations of the cesium 133 atom:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/second.html. The standard day is then 86400 seconds.

Answer 2

The origin is lost in time (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)...
Most historians think it came from Sumeria around 3,000 BC. The Sumerians were the first to invent a "place number" system (you know, where to write the letter 12 you put a 1 in the tens place, and a 2 in the ones place) -- but their system was base 60 (they didn't use the same number characters we did). They liked the number 60 because it was so easily factored (2,3,4,5,10,12,15, etc.). Their base 60 counting is assumed to be the basis of our 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute system that's still used.
I don't know how they originally determined the duration of a second, sorry.

Answer 3

This isn't exactly a Gender and Gender Studies question, but then again, I don't like answering Gender and Gender Studies questions. The numeric system we use is based on Arabic numbers. They were flowing and much easier to write than numerals from other countries/cultures. Consider Roman Numerals, for instance. The reason for a universal number system was trade. Phoenicians of the time period needed a method of accounting that everyone could understand, and they endorsed the Arabic numbers with other countries as the number system for trade and book keeping.

Answer 4

Well I know that the "hour" was in use in Ancient Egypt - but it was not called an hour.

Each 1/24 of the day was given a special name (usually featuring the name of the sungod Re in one description or another)

Answer 5

According to wikipedia,

"Originally, the second was known as a "second minute", meaning the second minute (i.e. small) division of an hour. The first division was known as a "prime minute" and is equivalent to the minute we know today.

i.e. small quantities of time of the 'second' order of minuteness from the minute when one is thinking in terms of mathematics, hence "seconds" from the times of Queen Elizabeth I.

The factor of 60 comes from the Babylonians who used factors of 60 in their counting system."

Answer 6

Hi. In history I would say I don't know. But your question was "use today" so I would have to say NIST among others.

Answer 7

your mom