Time
04/11/12 05:04
Back in the days of cassette tapes, I had a tape by the band Chicago that I often put in the car stereo when I was driving alone. There was a song, written by Robert Lamm that I listened to so many times that I still recall the words:
As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what
The time was that was on my watch, yeah...And I said
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to cry
And I was walking down the street one day
A pretty lady looked at me
And said her diamond watch had stopped cold dead...And I said
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to cry
And I was walking down the street one day
Being pushed and shoved by people trying to
Beat the clock, oh, no I just don't know
I don't know, and I said, yes I said
(Background:)
People runnin' everywhere
Don't know where to go
Don't know where I am
Can't see past the next step
Don't have time to think past the last mile
Have no time to look around
Just run around, run around and think why
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to die
Everybody's working (I don't) I don't care (About time)
About time (Oh no, no) I don't care
So today we end Daylight Savings Time. If you forgot, check you watch against your cell phone. These days almost all of us have a number of devices that set their clocks all by themselves. It wasn’t that long ago when you had to reset the clock in your computer. Then a few years later the operating system at least asked you if you wanted to change the clock. These days, it just changes. The clock in the cell phone changes by itself and so to a number of other automatic clocks that people have.
There are still a number of clocks that have to be dealt with manually. One of the hardest to set is the clock that manages the bell in our church. It is a complex, seven-day, twenty-four-hour clock that cannot be turned backwards. The option of pushing the clock ahead through all seven days exists, but it is far simpler to turn off the power for a little more than an hour and then move the clock ahead to the precise time.
From time to time I still hear complaints about Daylight Savings Time. And there are some places where it causes confusion, like Arizona, where it isn’t observed. So when it is Daylight Savings Time in Western South Dakota, it is an hour earlier in Arizona, as if it were in Pacific Time Zone. Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, it is the same time in Arizona that it is here. All of that is further confused by the simple fact that South Dakota occupies two time zones and the line doesn’t quite follow the river, so you have to check to see what time it is in certain towns.
Time is a very arbitrary human construct in the first place. Our clocks are roughly based on the amount of time it takes for the earth to rotate. As early as 2000 BC, the Egyptians had divided daytime and nighttime into twelve hours each. Being closer to the equator, days and nights were nearly the same length. The Hellenistic astronomers Hipparchus (150 BC) and Ptolemy (150 AD) didn’t use minutes or seconds, but divided the days (1/4, 2/3, etc.). They used time-degrees of 1/360 of a day or four minutes as the smallest unit of time.
It wasn’t until the later half of the 16th century that mechanical clocks recorded seconds.
These days there are atomic clocks with astounding accuracy that are used as the basis for time measurement. The problem with this great precision in time measurement is that the earth isn’t quite so precise in its rotation or its orbit. So, we base our measurement of time on the movement of the earth, but we are able to make clocks that are more precise than the earth’s movement, so the two do not always agree.
None of this has any deep practical meaning for most of us who have no real need to know precisely what time it is. About the right time is good enough for most of us. The people in my church like worship to start and end on time, but they aren’t picky enough to make a fuss over a minute or two. With cell phones we are probably more precise than once was the case, but we don’t need to get too much hung up on time.
The real time that we seem to want to know is how much we have left. Like young children we often wonder, “How long until . . . ?” Sometimes we can envision events that are a bit farther off than young children. In addition to “how long until dinner?” we pause to consider “How long until my vacation?” or “How many years before I retire?” All of those questions hid the big one, “How long until I die?” And there is no answer to that last question. At least there is no way of precisely knowing the answer. Even in the case of severe illness, there are too many variables to know the precise time of dying.
So we set our watches and we keep our calendars and we find various ways of dividing up our days into manageable ways of understanding time. The song really has the right question, however: “Does anyone really know what time it is?”
As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what
The time was that was on my watch, yeah...And I said
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to cry
And I was walking down the street one day
A pretty lady looked at me
And said her diamond watch had stopped cold dead...And I said
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to cry
And I was walking down the street one day
Being pushed and shoved by people trying to
Beat the clock, oh, no I just don't know
I don't know, and I said, yes I said
(Background:)
People runnin' everywhere
Don't know where to go
Don't know where I am
Can't see past the next step
Don't have time to think past the last mile
Have no time to look around
Just run around, run around and think why
(I don't) Does anybody really know what time it is
(Care) Does anybody really care (about time)
If so I can't imagine why (Oh no, no)
We've all got time enough to die
Everybody's working (I don't) I don't care (About time)
About time (Oh no, no) I don't care
So today we end Daylight Savings Time. If you forgot, check you watch against your cell phone. These days almost all of us have a number of devices that set their clocks all by themselves. It wasn’t that long ago when you had to reset the clock in your computer. Then a few years later the operating system at least asked you if you wanted to change the clock. These days, it just changes. The clock in the cell phone changes by itself and so to a number of other automatic clocks that people have.
There are still a number of clocks that have to be dealt with manually. One of the hardest to set is the clock that manages the bell in our church. It is a complex, seven-day, twenty-four-hour clock that cannot be turned backwards. The option of pushing the clock ahead through all seven days exists, but it is far simpler to turn off the power for a little more than an hour and then move the clock ahead to the precise time.
From time to time I still hear complaints about Daylight Savings Time. And there are some places where it causes confusion, like Arizona, where it isn’t observed. So when it is Daylight Savings Time in Western South Dakota, it is an hour earlier in Arizona, as if it were in Pacific Time Zone. Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, it is the same time in Arizona that it is here. All of that is further confused by the simple fact that South Dakota occupies two time zones and the line doesn’t quite follow the river, so you have to check to see what time it is in certain towns.
Time is a very arbitrary human construct in the first place. Our clocks are roughly based on the amount of time it takes for the earth to rotate. As early as 2000 BC, the Egyptians had divided daytime and nighttime into twelve hours each. Being closer to the equator, days and nights were nearly the same length. The Hellenistic astronomers Hipparchus (150 BC) and Ptolemy (150 AD) didn’t use minutes or seconds, but divided the days (1/4, 2/3, etc.). They used time-degrees of 1/360 of a day or four minutes as the smallest unit of time.
It wasn’t until the later half of the 16th century that mechanical clocks recorded seconds.
These days there are atomic clocks with astounding accuracy that are used as the basis for time measurement. The problem with this great precision in time measurement is that the earth isn’t quite so precise in its rotation or its orbit. So, we base our measurement of time on the movement of the earth, but we are able to make clocks that are more precise than the earth’s movement, so the two do not always agree.
None of this has any deep practical meaning for most of us who have no real need to know precisely what time it is. About the right time is good enough for most of us. The people in my church like worship to start and end on time, but they aren’t picky enough to make a fuss over a minute or two. With cell phones we are probably more precise than once was the case, but we don’t need to get too much hung up on time.
The real time that we seem to want to know is how much we have left. Like young children we often wonder, “How long until . . . ?” Sometimes we can envision events that are a bit farther off than young children. In addition to “how long until dinner?” we pause to consider “How long until my vacation?” or “How many years before I retire?” All of those questions hid the big one, “How long until I die?” And there is no answer to that last question. At least there is no way of precisely knowing the answer. Even in the case of severe illness, there are too many variables to know the precise time of dying.
So we set our watches and we keep our calendars and we find various ways of dividing up our days into manageable ways of understanding time. The song really has the right question, however: “Does anyone really know what time it is?”