Time on My Hands – A Brief History of the Development of Clocks

More than 7000 years ago, the Hindus of the Aryan Civilization used to measure time by looking at the positions of the stars, the Sun and other objects in the sky. Some say that these were the first people to measure time and that they used the first method to measure time. Before this, people used candles and sticks of incense. They would burn down at predictable speeds and allow people to know an increment of time and in this way judge how long it took to do a particular job.

Actually, people did not have a need to know the time of day or the days as counted now. They found that the seasons and the phases of the moon could be used to measure longer passages or periods of time. It was in the Middle East and North Africa that people were so busy that they found that they needed some way to manage their time more closely. They used sundials and hourglasses to measure this smaller period of time. Then they found a way to count using minutes and hours to show smaller increments of time. This was probably 5000-6000 years ago.

With the interest in electronics in the 20th century, we made major changes in clocks and clock works. The clocks got smaller with the need for smaller methods of making the clocks keep time. The vibration of tuning forks and quartz crystals were used to make them run much more accurately. After all, the clock is one of the oldest inventions of all and certainly one of the oldest electronic device made by humans. The human mind continually changes the operation of clocks, the look of the clock and the development of manufacturing companies who are responsible for creating or mass producing clocks of all types and sizes. People who have invested time and money into the manufacturing of clocks have lived the true American Dream.