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When did humans start counting time/dates? I can't seem to find the answer.
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Anonymous Coward |
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The Babylonians divided the day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. This form of counting has survived for 4000 years. To write 5h 25' 30", i.e. 5 hours, 25 minutes, 30 seconds, is just to write the sexagesimal fraction, 5 25/60 30/3600. We adopt the notation 5; 25, 30 for this sexagesimal number, for more details regarding this notation see our article on Babylonian numerals. As a base 10 fraction the sexagesimal number 5; 25, 30 is 5 4/10 2/100 5/1000 which is written as 5.425 in decimal notation.
this might answer your question better but it doesn't account for chinese clepsydras which may have been older but were probably invented as a gadget first with practical applicatons coming later
pots excavated from Mohenjodaro might have been used as water clocks; they are tapered at the bottom, have a hole on the side, and are similar to the utensil used to perform abhishekam (pour holy water) on shivalingam
still about 4000 yrs
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