Why Are There 24 Hours in a Day?

This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountain down.

Gollum may have said it best: Time comes for us all. But our reckoning of time is far less objective and a lot more human. Why do we divide our days into 24 hours and not, say, 10?

Find out in the above Big Questions video from host Craig Benzine, who offers a brief history of time, conjectures about ancient Egyptian modes of transportation, and even manages to squeeze in the word sexagesimal.


December 30, 2016 – 12:00am

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