Why is There 24 Hours in a Day? All You should Know

How many times we check time in a day? We work according to our timetable. Days, month and years passed in the same way. Has ever this question came to your mind that why there are sixty seconds in one minute? Why one hour is of sixty minutes? And why is there 24 hours in a day? Who finalized this time division? You will get answers of all these questions in this piece of construct.

You know this that our pretty blue Earth revolves around sun. Earth completes its one revolution around Earth in 365 days. But other than this, Earth revolves around in another way too. After every twenty four hours, our Earth revolves around its own axis. Because of this, days change into nights and nights change into days. This difference of day and night is because of Earth revolution around its own axis. Not because of Earth`s revolution around sun. Then why is there 24 hours in a day and not 25? When and who did the division of hours? This is also a question you may have considered. Let’s dive in.

Why is There 24 Hours in a Day?

The credit for distributing one day into twenty four hours goes to ancient Egyptians. They divided day time into 10 hours, measured with devices such as shadow clocks, and added a twilight hour at the beginning and another one at the end of the day time. In this way, they divided a day into twelve hours. Now you must what is shadow clock and how it works? To know this, we are back moving to the era when there was no invention of clock.

That was three thousand years ago when Egyptians started use of shadow clocks known as sundials to divide a day into so many small parts. That was once used for estimating time. You can also imagine it as earlier form of clock. There is a very simple thing behind the question, “How it was used for finding time?” that you can easily understand if you consider. That is this while standing under sun, you may observe that your shadow becomes long for some time and sometime it becomes short. So this is the science of sundial. Ancient Egyptians estimated time by measuring length of shadow using sundials.

♦ All You Need to Know about the Types of Stars

How was Night Divided into Twelve Hours?

Now come to the night, because sundial can works in day time but during night when there is no shadow. Then how they divided night into twelve hours? Egyptians had divided night into twelve hours according to observations of stars. Ancient Greeks have system consist of a group of 36 stars known as Decans.

Like sun stars also move on sky as time passes. By seeing the location of stars on sky, Egyptians told about night time. For observation of Decans, Egyptians had specially prepared tables which they usually engraved on coffin`s cover. Through the help of these special tables, they estimated hours of night. They had selected twelve stars for time measurement so that with the help of their position they measured time in full dark. In this way, twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night equal to one days.

♦ List of the Countries where Sun never Sets

What is difference between AM and PM?

Ancient Egyptians have finalized 24 hours of one day. And with the help of sundial they divided a day into twelve hours and with movement of stars they divided night into twelve hours. All mechanical clocks showed 24 hours in starts. The clock you are seeing in the picture below was is the form in which early clocks were prepared. But with passage of time, clockmakers have realized that if they make clocks of twelve hours it will be more easy and cheap. Twelve hours for day and twelve for night.

To differentiate between day and night, AM and PM were started being used. AM and PM are Latin words, used to refer time. In English, these terms started use from seventy century. AM means ante meridiem is for time before mid day, before 12 in day. And PM means post meridiem is for time mid day,

In easy words, from 12 in night to 12 in morning will be told as 12 am, 1am, 2am. Means it will be time before mid-day. After 12 of day, time will be as 1pm, 2 pm, 3pm. Means PM start from 12 noon and it will last for 11:99 of night. After this, it will change to PM. In this way, cycle of time goes on.

The clock of 12 hours is not as easier as you think. Even now, 24 hour clock is mostly used in world. Because the countries we know the most such as New Zeeland , America , England, Australia , Pakistan and India . People usually their use 12 hour clock. That`s why we think people use this clock mostly, but reality is opposite. Now, 24 hours clocks are mostly used in world. 24 hour round clock are mostly used in Germany, France, Romania and Vietnam.

♦ Top 10 Famous Festivals and Celebrations around the World

Why are There 60 Minutes in an Hour?

In this modern world, we use decimal system on very large scale. And its base is ten. Now a days, decimal number system is considered very easy. Because our fingers are also ten. By this system, counting numbers become easier. We can easily count numbers on our fingers.

But in ancient time many other number systems were being used which included duodecimal, sexagesimal number systems. The civilization used different numeral systems, specifically duodecimal (base12) and sexagesimal (base60). So this division of sixty minutes based on this sexagesimal. This division was done by Babylonians. Babylonia is state of ancient Mesopotamia. And Babylonian city inhabited where today Iraq is located.

So those people by using sexagesimal system of base 60 divided one hour into sixty months. They did this because can easily divide to many numbers. You yourself see that if we do division of sixty it can easily divided by 1, 2 , 3, 4 , 5 ,6 , 10, 12 ,15, 20, 30, 60. But if we have 100 seconds, then there division will be somehow difficult. Because 100 can only be just divided by 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100. That`s why Babylonians used base of sixty and divided one hour into sixty minutes and then one minute into sixty seconds. So that 24 hours of day can be easily divided into different parts. And there will be easiness while noting time.

Hope, this piece of construct would add much in your insights pertaining to the question, “Why is there 24 hours in a day?”