The second as a time unit didn't originate in Babylon. They didn't even have minutes in those times either. The sunlit part of the day was divided into 12 parts called hours. The length of the hour varied day to day with the seasons. On the first day of summer, the hour was the longest and the first day of winter the hour was the shortest. On the equinoxes, the hours were equal and I'd guess about the same length as they are now. or pretty close to it. The passage of time at night was not measured in hours, but in watches. Watches have nothing to do with the time piece you wear on your wrist, but when the guards were changed.
The 24 h day as we know it did not exist. The term day referred to the 12 h when the sun was up and the term night referred to the time the sun was down. If you wanted to refer to what would now be a 24 h day, then you combined the term "day and night". When Jesus was in the grave, he was in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights. The sun dial was the popular means to measure time and the best you could do was measure to quarter hours. It is from the sun dial that some still measure time in 12 h cycles and use terms like quarter-past, half-past and quarter to the hours. The concept of seconds, minutes, fixed hours and the 24 h clock didn't come until mechanical clocks and time pieces were invented in the middle ages and later. The second of angle is Babylonian and thus should be replaced by the metric radian. Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Pierre Abbat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 12:32:30 AM Subject: [USMA:38208] Re: Is the U.S. customary system easier to use than the metric system? On Wednesday 14 March 2007 23:23, Daniel Jackson wrote: > Second, the bible makes it clear that anything associated with Babylon is > an abomination. Babylon symbolizes sin. FFU has its origins in Babylon, > therefore FFU is sinful. > > SI has been honest from the start and never was associated with Babylon. > Therefore SI units can be considered sacred. The second was originally 1/60 minute, and the minute 1/60 hour, and the hour 1/24 day, and the practice of dividing things by 60 originated in Babylon. Even though the second is now defined by the vibration of a cesium atom, it's still within a second per year of 1/86400 of a mean solar day. phma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121
