Abstract
Civilizations across the globe invented calendars and refined their observations of the Moon and planets to help synchronize their lives to these cycles. The modern world is distinctive for its advanced technology, for its material culture, and for its embrace of science. The development of all three of these was inseparable from the development of the science of time.
“Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
”Seasons of Love, lyrics from the Broadway Musical “Rent”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Brecher, K., and M. Feirtag. 1979. Astronomy of the ancients. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Evans, J. 1998. The history and practice of ancient astronomy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Freeth, T., et al. 2006. Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calendar Known as the Antikythera mechanism. Nature 444(7119): 587–591.
Freeth, T., A. Jones, J.M. Steele, and Y. Bitsakis. 2008. Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism. Nature 454(7204): 614–617.
Goudsmit, S.A., and R. Claiborne. 1969. Time. New York: Time-Life Books.
Heavner, T.P., et al. 2014. First accuracy evaluation of NIST-F2. Metrologia 51: 174.
Huygens, C. 1673. Christiani Hugenii Zulichemii, Const. f., Horologium oscillatorium, siue, De motu pendulorum ad horologia aptato demonstrationes geometricae. Parisiis: Apud F. Muguet.
JILA. 2016. AMO physics and precision measurement. http://jila.colorado.edu/yelabs/research/ultracold-strontium. Accessed July 2016.
Kelley, D.H., and E.F. Milone. 2005. Exploring ancient skies: An encyclopedic survey of archaeoastronomy. New York: Springer.
Krupp, E.C. 1984. Echoes of the ancient skies: The astronomy of lost civilizations. New York: New American Library.
Lin, J.L., and H.S. Yan. 2014. Historical development of reconstruction designs of Antikythera mechanism. Presented in proceedings of the 9th international conference on history of mechanical technology and mechanical design, Tainan, 23–25 Mar 2014. (Applied mechanics and materials, vol 163, 1–62012.04.).
Lin, J.L.. 2011. Systematic reconstruction designs of Antikythera mechanism. Dissertation, Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Lin, J.L., and H.S. Yan. 2016. Decoding the mechanisms of the Antikythera astronomical device. New York: Springer.
Lockyer, N., and G.M. Seabroke. 1878. Stargazing: Past and present. London: Macmillan.
Marchant, J. 2010. Mechanical inspiration. Nature 468: 496.
Meyer, R., 2015, Clocks are too precise (and people don’t know what to do about it). The Atlantic.
Needham, J. 1981. Science in traditional China: A comparative perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Needham, J., and C.A. Ronan. 1980. The shorter science and civilization in China: An abridgement of Joseph Needham’s original text. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Needham, J., et al. 1986. Heavenly clockwork: The great astronomical clocks of medieval China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nicholson, T.L., S.L. Campbell, R.B. Hutson, G.E. Marti, B.J. Bloom, R.L. McNally, W. Zhang, M.D. Barrett, M.S. Safronova, G.F. Strouse, W.L. Tew and J. Ye., 2015, Systematic evaluation of an atomic clock at 2 × 10−18 total uncertainty. Nature Communications .
Sobel, D. 1995. Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. New York: Walker.
NIST. 2008. NIST-F1 Cesium fountain atomic clock. From https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/primary-standard-nist-f1.
———. 2009. Ytterbium gains round in quest for next-generation atomic clocks. From https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/primary-standard-nist-f1.
Rees, A. 1819. The cyclopædia; or, universal dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees.
Smith, M.. 2000. Robert Hooke—English father of microscopy. From http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmar00/hooke4.html.
Van Helden, A.. 1995. The Galileo Project—Pendulum clock. From http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/pendulum.html.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Penprase, B.E. (2017). Modern Timekeeping and the Development of the Science of Time. In: The Power of Stars. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52597-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52597-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52595-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52597-6
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)