THE 24-HOUR CLOCK

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 20 June 1931, Page 9

THE 24-HOUR CLOCK

r Proposal in England

NEWTON moved in the House of Lords a resolution urging the Post Office ami the railway companies, for the purposes of their time-tables, to use a day consisting of one set of twenty-four hours instead of two sets of twelve hours, and the Government has promised to consider the matter carefully and sympathetically. The advantages of this particular means of rationalising our measurement of time have often been advocated—as by the Home Office Committee of 1910 (states the London “Times”). The change could be made easily and expeditiously. The system is in general use abroad and for astronomical purposes at Home. This country, which advances its clocks by one hour at the beginning of summer with scarcely a murmur and with a minimum of preliminary notice, would have no difficulty in accommodating itself to a change that is permanent and not recurrent. So far as the clocks are concerned, all that is needed is the painting of another circle of ligures on the face so that we read 1 or 13, 2 or 14, and so on. So far as the citizen is concerned, all that is needed is the ability to count up t o twenty-four. Those who always suspect movements for reform may be assured that behind the present proposals' there lurks no plan for the fixation of Easter, or for the robbing of the British people of another eleven days. Perhaps the best method of discrediting the present system is to show its origin. The use of the numbers CO and 24 for the measurement of time arose among the Babylonians and needs no apology. They are far superior to the decimal units—the Babylonians had a decimal notation alongside the sexagesimal—in being exactly divisible by several factors. A working day of twenty-four hours, for example, can be divided into equal shifts of twelve, eight, six, four, three or two hours, which should find palce for the desires of every one from the most hard-hearted of slave-drivers to the most visionary of trade unionists. As the system was employed in Greece, where Y* its operation is known most fully, the day from sunrise to sunset was divided into twelve' hours, and the night from sunset to sunrise was also divided into twelve hours. In consequence dav and night and the length of the hour varied with the season. A summer day hour was long and a summer night hour short- and the waterclocks had their output ingeniously regulated to meet this variation in length. In time the absurdity of dividing up day and night in this fashion was recognised and the whole day and night was regarded as a single unit of twentyfour hours. But the practice of using two sets of twelve, hours continued, although its basis had been taken away; and it has continued with all its anomalies to the present time. The custom is a relic of a long-gone past; it has no foundation to-day and leads to much confusion. A simple alternative is ready at hand and should he adopted forthwith.