Why do clocks go clockwise instead of counter clockwise? Why?

Answer 1

~ Great Question, Flower Power Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Answered very well by this article:

Why is clockwise Clockwise?
© Donn Haven Lathrop 1996

is a question which was once answered to my satisfaction by that paragon of authority-my elementary school teacher, who firmly stated; "Because the hands on a clock turn in a certain direction, and we call that direction clockwise." Shortly after this revelation, I learned that the opposite of clockwise was, by default, counter-clockwise. Many years later, in working with clocks and in writing of their development and of their makers, I found I wanted to know WHY clockwise became clockwise. This time, I wasn't going to be fobbed off with another "Because that's the way it is." answer. I also had a sneaking suspicion that there were other reasons for this seemingly arbitrary choice of direction, and that other words were used to describe this left to right motion, before the first clock ever ticked.

Delving about in various books brought up a number of possible reasons for this evidently arbitrary choice of direction - left to right - for the hands of clocks, as well as the likely reasons behind many other rites and rituals which require this left to right motion. Examples of these are the insistence of the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians on left to right movement in their religious ceremonies and the Irish warriors who wordlessly declared their hostile intentions by circling their enemies from right to left - counter-clockwise. There is also the record of the circumambulation of Jericho before its walls fell - although we don't know whether the Israelites walked clockwise or counter- clockwise.

Clockwise and counterclockwise as we now know them seem to have derived from an accident of - as the real estate dealer said - location, location, location. In the Northern Hemisphere (in what is now Iraq), where the cradle of our civilization was rocked and the first written records were kept some 4, 000 years ago, the early thinkers and teachers noted that their own shadows moved from left to right, as does the shadow of a stick or a sundial move from left to right during the course of the sun across the heavens. It seems to be a peculiarity of our human nature that if we are watching the movement of a stick's shadow, that we face north to do so. If we want to see our own shadows, we have to face north. Otherwise we would either be standing on the 'dials' of our 'sun-clocks', or spending a lot of time looking over our shoulders just to see our own shadows. The hemicyclium (a very early sundial), by its very design demanded that someone checking the time had to face north to do so, as did vertical dials that were placed on the south walls of buildings. When horizontal sundials came along, the numbers were placed on the north edge of the dial, because they were then easier to read; the Sun was to the south, and the dial lines radiate from south to north. That meant that one had to face north to most easily read the dial, and the shadow moved from left to right.

In that same Northern Hemisphere, however, if you want to check the path of the sun across the heavens, you have to face south, and the sun moves from your left to your right. And these are the reasons why the hands of a clock turn from left to right - clockwise. Therefore, our modern 'clockwise' seems to be an accident of the development of civilization in the Northern Hemisphere and human nature. If our ancestors had decided to develop civilization in southern Africa, or the Antipodes, clockwise would have been counter-clockwise, simply because everything is reversed south of the Equator. A sundial designed for North Dakota will work in New Zealand, but the numbers will be backwards.

This left-to-right, or clockwise, movement, became so ingrained in the culture patterns of different peoples that their ancient rituals made 'good' magic by moving from left to right. The North orientation is also tied in with this direction of movement - it was believed that making the 'sacred circuit' from left to right would keep the constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) from getting stuck in one position, or even turning backwards. This constellation, before Stonehenge or the invention of any other calendrical device, was a celestial clock to early Man. These many hundreds of centuries later, it still marks the seasons of the year - clockwise. The bear's 'tail' points eastward in spring, to the south in summer, to the west in autumn, and northward in winter. Before clocks were invented and the words 'clockwise' and 'counter-clockwise' were derived from the motion of the hand(s), the clockwise movement was called 'sunwise'. Sunwise is a term found in the descriptions of various rituals in ancient manuscripts, and sunwise applied whether the ritual was employed by people who were desperately praying for rain or who were disporting themselves in a fertility frolic.

This sunwise direction has been a ritualistic requirement since earliest history, and has been found all over the world; from the dawn of the Sumerians and their written records, amongst the very early clans of the Scottish Highlands, in the sand-paintings of the Navajo in our own Southwest, to the prayer wheel of the modern Tibetan. In what may be a deliberate rejection of this pagan ritualistic requirement the Stations of the Cross in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches are visited counterclockwise.

The antonym of sunwise is widdershins, and this anti-sunwise, or backwards motion was required by some rituals - particularly in the ancient 'undoing ceremony - the 'ceremony of riddance.' For instance, there is a record that Welsh children suffering from internal disorders were 'dipped into a sacred well against the sun', and were then dragged three times around the well on the grass in the same direction. Note the wordless declaration by Irish warriors of their intent to 'undo' their enemies. Right to left motion was also considered to be evil, or a method of summoning the Devil, and therefore became common in 'black' magic.

However, don't ask me why the Muslim faithful in Mecca circle the Ka'aba seven times counter-clockwise, why people lost in the wilderness tend to drift to the left as they wander, nor why Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan flew widdershins in 1938 when he flew from Brooklyn to Dublin after filing a flight plan to Los Angeles, nor why baseball base-runners and racers; whether horse, automobile, or human - even the great roller derby stars - always travel counterclockwise, regardless of the hemisphere in which the race is located. And please! don't ask me why it is that from the clock's point of view - its own hands are travelling counterclockwise!

I will leave you with two thoughts: Perhaps the nameless American baseball baserunner who ran to third base - clockwise - instead of first, was attempting to undo the 'evil' that was making his team lose; and on some serious reflection on all of the above, it might be a good idea to get rid that cute little backwards quartz clock hanging over the bar in your basement recreation room. One never knows!

Answer 2

This could be also explained through science as done by some people but going philosophically I think that this happens
because clockwise motion rotating from right to left signifies constant growth or development in human life. Also the motion of our planet "earth" is from east to west same as the clockwise motion .

Answer 3

God had to choose a way for the clocks to go, so he chose clockwise. It's like all those questions: Why are most humans right handed as apposed to left handed? Why is north at the top and south at the bottom? Why do we walk forwards and not backwards? Who knows.

Answer 4

If they went counter clockwise, you would have to say why dont clocks go clockwise instead of counter clock, so we may as well have them clock wise then you wont bother asking about counter clock.

Answer 5

Pick up a flexible scale marked from 1 to 12 (inches or cms).Bend it to form a perfect circle.
You now have something similar to the dial of a clock.
So its easy to conclude that the lateral movement from Left to Right
has been transformed into a circular movement from, again, Left to Right.

The word 'clockwise' is only a convinient name for this circular movement .

Answer 6

Clockwise represents forward motion.

Answer 7

Clocks traditionally follow this sense of rotation because of the clock's predecessor: the sundial. Clocks with hands were first built in the Northern Hemisphere (see main article), and they were made to work like sundials. In order for a horizontal sundial to work (in the north), it must be placed looking southward. Then, when the Sun moves in the sky (east to south to west), the shadow cast by the sundial moves in the opposite direction, that is west to north to east. That's why hours were drawn in sundials in that manner, and that's why modern clocks have their numbers set in the same way.

Occasionally, clocks whose hands revolve counterclockwise are nowadays sold as a novelty. Historically, some Jewish clocks were built that way, for example in some Synagogue towers in Europe. This was done in accordance with the right-to-left reading direction of Hebrew

Answer 8

Because they do, and if they went anti-clockwise, they would in effect be going clockwise, because the definition would change.

Answer 9

The first clocks were sundials, and the shadow on a sundial always moves in a 'clockwise' direction.
Mechanical clocks were built to imitate sundials.

Answer 10

I think that if they were all set to go counter clockwise then time itself would reverse. This would create the paradox that they would go back so far that clock's would cease to exist and time would stop.

Answer 11

They were based on the toilet flow in Europe way back when, which is "clockwise".