Harry Edward Neal (1906–1993)

Time plays a role in our lives. This book is not about "Time" -- the mathematical abstraction in E=mc2 -- it is about the calendars, clocks, and schedulings that govern our lives. Includes Index and photographs of wonderfully clever clocks.

The time between full moons -- 29 suns -- was called a "moonth". The moon was the first basis for a calendar having 360 days in a year, or 12 30-day months. [15] Of course, the earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to orbit the sun. The Babylonian calendar lost nearly 6 days each year, and therefore added an entire month when needed ("intercalary").

A brief section on "special time" includes the fact that Nature has built in to some of its creatures. The fiddler crab changes color from light to dark and back in a rhythm which reflects the diurnal, even when kept in darkened rooms for weeks at a stretch. Oysters will open their shells to feed at the exact time of the incoming tide, even if moved thousands of miles away, and the tidal motion is not the same. Trees keep annual time in rings precisely marking each year. [162-163]… (mehr)