Spending Time with the Units of Time
As the new year began, I relished the time I spent in the passing year, subsequently getting interested in the units of time themselves. Civilizations have been tracking time for thousands of years. One of the first things they did as soon as writing itself was invented was time-keeping. Stonehenge and other structures like it date back to prehistoric times.
And it is easy to see why- Time is everything. Solutions to half the resolutions people around you will be making, for instance, are just modified versions of “I’ll manage my time well from now”. But to early humans wanting to measure and manage time as we do now posed a problem- nothing on Earth proved reliable enough to serve as an accurate clock. Thus they turned to the vast and infinite expanse staring at them from above which no other human could manipulate or control but everyone could see at once, the sky.
Why else would “calendar” come from a word that means “to call out” as the priests in Rome did to announce the new moon that marked a month’s beginning? New moons were not calculated mathematically at that time but rather observed from the Capitol and declared for everyone, hence the name. Imagine living in that era.
In the technological world, we forget how complex the simple beginnings of timekeeping were. Even now, if we suddenly lose all artificial clocks, skies will used to tell time by the masses until new ones are made. Unlike other measurements (like the meter) which moved on to more absolute and precise definitions, most units of time in a calendar are still to this day, defined and centered around the sky.
We’ll cover these topics here-
Getting someone’s time is difficult. But changing someone’s sense of time is next to impossible. Public reactions to calendar reforms have historically often resorted to violence and rioting.
All of this is why it is still relevant and interesting to understand the calendar’s beginnings, related etymologies, and why stuff in a calendar happens the way it does. So here are some interesting things I found in the order of their magnitude—
Years and Months
While a year (originating from German Jahr) is based on the Solar Cycle, the months (coming from the Moon) are not. They are based on the Lunar Cycle.
How come we don't have 13 months in a year?
28 times 13 is 364 which, with a leap day adding up to the requisite 365, seems like a more logical way to divide months and days in a year as all months would have an exact 28 days beginning with the same day every time.
Not impossible. Many lunar calendars including the Islamic Calendar consist of 13 months. In the West, efforts to switch to such a calendar persisted till as late as the 1920s. Spoiler alert, they failed every time. What makes this “logical” method so illogical? The answer lies in mathematics and the moon.
Historically, 13 months were viewed as inherently less convenient in everyday life than a more divisible and even 12 months. The superstitions surrounding the number itself certainly didn’t help. Fast forward to modern times, the system collected a sort of historical baggage and makes the implementation now more challenging. Changing calendars now will result in key dates, that’s everything from birthdays to founding dates of entire countries, deviating significantly. Good luck trying to convince people that their birthday will now fall at best two days later or at worst in another month entirely. The years in the Islamic calendar regress through the seasons over time meaning their festivals often change positions which they have accepted and explains why they are okay with 13 months while the Catholic Church, which didn’t accept this change, is not.
The second issue is the lunar phases. Earth’s satellite taking ~12 cycles within Earth's one revolution is the reason for the 12 months in one year. Not synchronising that way will mean adding a leap month every few years— far less convenient than the single leap day right?
Hopefully, we now solve the mystery as to why no one in the West came close to adopting a 13-month calendar.
What about the odd start of the year smackdown in the middle of the winter season in January?
It is neither the end nor the beginning of a season anywhere on Earth. Surely this wasn’t a natural choice made by our ancestors right? No trick questions, you’d be right if you agreed. They didn’t. January isn't the beginning in many calendars around the world and hasn’t always been so in the Western one since its inception either. The deviation from common sense goes back to the Romans.
Originally a year in the Roman empire (from where the modern Gregorian calendar originates) started at the end of March but it jumped to January for two reasons-
The new year only coincidentally began around March, as it did not align with Spring like other cultures, but rather dictated by the terms of the two consuls of the State office— the highest public official position in the republic— hired annually. But in 154BC, facing the Lusitanian War (along with the Second Celtiberian War), Rome elected the two Consuls early, on January 1, resulting in the empire celebrating the new year two months early. That became a precedent no one bothered to change. Thus a six-year war left a two millennia (and counting) legacy which you can thank the Spanish, specifically the Celtiberians and Lusitanians, for. Why wasn’t it ever changed back though? Not a bad question.
Cut to a hundred years later in 45 BC, fresh on the scene is the newly appointed Julius Ceasar, having the very relatable desire to name a calendar after himself as one does. In front of his ambitions and his officials, not yet in a betrayal mood, stood a troubling problem. To avoid disturbing the precedent, they kept the now century-old change before also giving an official reason- apparently, they were keen to honor Janus, the god of beginnings, after whom the month of January was initially named.
What Ceaser wouldn’t know however was that he would not outlive even one year of his own calendar as he would be tragically assassinated on the ides of March of the new 44 BC by his own loyal supporters. Coincidentally around the same time as a new year in the older calendar would fall. But he didn’t just leave the whole of Calendar to his name— The month of Quintilus in the old calendar also took his name post-humously, known as July.
Seasons
Due to the dominance of agriculture in our society and economy not that long back, syncing all these calendars with the natural seasons affecting crop cycles made sense. Major festivals around the world are tied to the start or end of summer and winter. Examples include Halloween in the West, Holi in India, Hanami in Japan, and Beltane in Scotland. Beyond climate, seasons also affected the major economic activity of the empires at the time— agriculture— hence much regard had to be given to them.
The year in many cultures began somewhere between February and March precisely due to this reason- being the onset of Spring and then Summer when most crops are sown.
What jumps up though is the word itself, season— both a noun and a verb. As a testament to how amusing language evolution is though, these words do NOT boast the same origins.
Season the noun comes from the Old French seison meaning “the right time” as in the right time to do something like sowing crops and gradually shifted to mean what it does today. Season the verb originated from the French sesounen which meant to improve flavor. Pretty much the same as it does today.
So although they stem from the same language (a version of French) and are rooted in around the same times (1300s vs 1400s), these two branched off from separate origins. A testament indeed.
Coming to the seasons themselves, we have about four or five major seasons depending on where you live. Comment the etymologies of seasons from your language!
An article here already wonderfully explains their English etymology. TLDR-
Spring simply refers to the “springing” of crops and plants.
Summer originated from Middle English Somer, which meant "Outing".
Though Fall and Harvest are self-explanatory, the origins of the word Autumn are unclear but could have originated from words that meant “to increase” (as in the crops as they are harvested) or “to dry” (as is the climate at the time).
Winter came from a word that meant "Wet" or "Windy".
The arbitrary 4 weeks and 7 days
The week is the only artificially generated unit in the dictionary of time, having no direct astronomical basis. A month has 4 weeks simply because there are 7 named days and about 28 days in a month.
The 7 days are so named due to the 7 distinct celestial bodies (also called classical planets) visible to the naked eye like so-
Sunday (the sun),
Monday (the moon, similar to Month),
Tuesday (the English name originating from the Norse God of War Týr and ssymbolizesMars, itself named after the Roman's God of War),
Wednesday (the English name coming from the German pronunciation of Odin as Wodin and ssymbolizesMercury, itself also named after the God)
Thursday (Jupiter as both the planet and the Roman God after which it was named, Zues to Greeks and Thor to the Norse from which its English name originates),
Friday (Venus as the planet with the name originating from the Goddess Frigga whom the planet was often associated),
and lastly, Saturday (Saturn both the God and the planet).
Sunday as the first day looks more sensible to those of you for whom it didn’t earlier, doesn’t it now? When was it thrown to the last?
Fast forward a few centuries, and as economies progressed, the workday became increasingly intense and stressful. A day dedicated to rest was needed by workers so temporal planners had to come up with a way. They found that way, of course, in religion. For Christians, Sunday was reserved for religious worship as the day had religious significance concerning a certain someone’s return back from the dead. Sunday hence got picked as the day of rest, its place Monday then naturally inherited. In modern times though, this confusion is mostly not a problem— digital calendars flip the first day with a single tap. Now you know why that’s even an option.
The naming of days by planets (or Gods which in turn inspired planets' names anyway) is not exclusive to the West, however. A Sunday in Hindi is रविवार. In Japanese it is 日曜日. Both literally mean “the day for the sun”.
Hours and Minutes
Why is the day divided into 24 hours everywhere?
Why not a day of 48 hours or 12 hours? The Egyptians are considered the first to come up with a day/night cycle. The day part was further divided into 12 hours as that was the average time the sun took to rise and set which is what needed to be tracked for most of humanity. The night part was not divided as fewer activities were possible in the dark before the invention of electricity. The second factor hence becomes biology, i.e., the need for ~8 hours of sleep every 16-18 hours creating the natural mental break (ergo the circadian rhythm) which influences the timing of our days.
In other words, the day now becomes the second unit after the year to connect to the solar cycle. The combination of the body’s nocturnal cycles and Earth’s rotation is the reason we get a day of 24 hours.
But how come we are counting sixty minutes in an hour?
Why not a hundred or anywhere in between? Turns out, the concept of minutes and its parts was devised much earlier than years or months dating back to the Babylonians (from modern-day Iraq) who inherited it from Sumerians (also from Iraq). The reason for their choice of a Sexagesimal (base 60) system is not clear but it stayed that way and was not replaced subsequently like other systems (like the Julian Calendar in favor of the Gregorian Calendar) because 60, like 12, is just as convenient mathematically in the decimal (base 10) system divisible by 1-6, 10,15,20 and 30 making its smaller divisions in the minutes and later seconds, also convenient.
Minutes, Seconds and Milliseconds
The connection between a minute to hours is evident from the name— Minute comes from the Latin Minuta meaning “the first small part”. So a minute is the first small part of an hour. Similarly, a second is the second small part of the hour and also gets divided into 60.
Applying this logic, the millisecond could have easily been called a Tierce (Third division of the hour) and divided into 60. Such precise units were neither required nor measurable in those times however so this didn’t come to be. By the time a millisecond, nanosecond, or picosecond was needed, the metric system (based on the decimal system) came around and promptly influenced its naming and its division into the 100s instead of into 60s.
Scientifically though, the units of time are not all astronomically defined anymore and it’s all thanks to… Science?
Let’s explore this irony. As the rotation of Earth not only varies greatly but is also ever-slowing, units defined on it would render precise scientific calculations inaccurate. Thus a unit of time based on a more accurately measurable, consistently reproducible, and fundamentally natural phenomenon was required.
The international scientific community decided the Second to be the base unit on which all other measures of time will now be defined. They now just needed to define this one unit in concrete terms. After much searching, the chemical properties of the Ceasium-133 atom were found to fit all the criteria.
In essence, the definition moved from Astronomy to Chemistry. From the biggest of things in our solar system to the smallest of atoms.
Empires Which Influenced the Units of Time
Most calendars in the world follow the same basic structure of years, months, and days. Everyone has the same sky to base it on after all. The specifics (like the number of months) however, change calendar to calendar. It is revealing to realise which of the modern-day countries’ former empires influenced the current standards-
The Babylons- Ruling much of modern-day Iraq are the reason for the sexagesimal units- seconds and minutes.
Romans- Spreading from present-day Rome in Italy, their influence forms the basis of the Gregorian Calendar. That means Years, Months, Weeks, and Days.
The French- too had a role. The change of second discussed earlier was decided at the 13th General Conference for Weights and Measurements (GCPM) in 1967, laid down by the Metre Convention in 1875. Since this convention was led by France, motivated by the need for standardization post-French Revolution, it can be said we owe France for the modern Second.
However, this is merely a technical jumbo of “who came first”. Standardization of this kind was inevitable as scientific discovery advanced. Moreover, it was a treaty signed by all the member states and not just dictated by France alone much like how the United Nations works. It was decided by the world and stands to this day as a rare show of global cooperation as not even the US, notorious for following different standards, has a different clock system today.
Safe to say, given its practical benefits, this was one change that didn’t incite any violence.
Until Next Time…
From huge sundials to atomic clocks, timekeeping has come a long way. However complicated it might seem, the goal always has been to bring order to the chaos of existence.
It is interesting to see the similarities in temporal terms like how month and Monday both owe their name to the white sky dragon above our heads but also the dissimilarities like the origins of the word season.
Time as a natural concept has no beginning or end, none we can verify yet anyway. Timekeeping itself is a human-made concept though and it is ever-changing as our needs change. From being based on the movements of giant celestial bodies to the tiniest vibrations of atoms, it will keep getting more sophisticated as humanity advances. One truth will remain unchanged, however— Time is limited and precious. Manage it well.