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| Credit: The British sundial Society |
Foucault's Pendulum
Tom curated 'Foucault's Pendulum at the base of the tower. Roger ridged up a bell to strike when the pendulum had moved by two degrees in an clockwise direction. This took 5 minutes. The pendulums proves that the world is spinning in a clockwise direction around the poles when out north is uppermost. It was beautifully and convincingly done. In the southern hemisphere the illustration is the opposite. At the equator the pendulum stays in the same plane, and does not move. At the poles is rotates the quickest, covering 360 degrees in a day. This is 2.5 degrees per 5 minutes, so not much faster than York.
How to Philosophers think about Time? Well, not like the rest of us. Is time chronological....errr yes? are we ever out of time? We can feel that we are for sure. The cultural aspects of time are strong.
My thoughts went to a fascinating discussion had on Radio 3's programme called 'I Have Been Here Before' . Francis Spufford explains how the whimsical theories of JW Dunne influenced his story telling.
In 1927 he published a book called An Experiment With Time. Dunne described two experiences of time. Conscious time (or time when we are awake) was restricted to the chorological passage of events, where us unconscious time (when asleep) liberated the person from the constraints of time, so that one could float into the past or the future. For a brief period his theory became very popular, and people across Britain wrote down their dreams, to discover if these were portentous. Many people wrote to Dunne describing how their dreams had come to pass.
I understand that time can be measured a number of ways. Entropy measures time, Everything degrades over time, so steady deterioration measures time. Radioactive isotopes have half-lives.
The reality of time is also shared. Some things feels as if they take for ever (such as a watched kettle.) Somethings happen quickly, like "wasn't Christmas last month, and here I am carrying a freshly cut Christmas tree down the road. When I was young the Summer holiday felt like it too a year. Now the years go past as if they were months.
There are cultural aspects of time. In the old days the church (or municipal) clock gave a shared sense of time. Some clocks chime the hours (or even quarter hours). Famously in the west we use diaries, and have Strict codes about time keeping. In other countries what is important at this very instant is the most important thing. Society understands this, and accommodates for it. Anglican church services tend to run like clockwork. My Pentecostal church starts with the building almost empty, but 15 minutes latter it's packed. We accommodate for this by always starting a bit late.
The experience of 'now' is like music. It is here; we experience it, and it disappears, like painting with water. The past creates memories. The future creates conjecture. How much time is actually 'present'. Time is like the running of a film through a projector. The moment of time that actually exists is a nanosecond, indeed it can be reduced to almost nothing, infinitesimally small. It is like the running of an old fashioned needle in the groove of a record.
I remembered the resident in a care home I once worked at. As I passed down the corridor he called out, "What's the time?.....and the date?.....and the year?"
Our speaker mentioned Occam's razor- I forgot what it is is- so here is is for posterity. When you have two competing theories, choose the one with the fewer assumptions. She applied this to theories of time.
She also mentioned Gog and Magog. Gog and the land of Gog- depicted in Ezekiel 38, and then Revelation. In Revelation Gog and his nation are allies of Satan.
I recalled my theory of time as a linear progression, like a train traveling along the track of time. People get onto the train. The train pulls into the station, and although people entered at different times, they all get off at the same time, into a different dimension of time.
Sundials
I liked the thought that a good architect designs building conscious of the shadows they will create, because the shadows are part of the experience of the building.
Hyden wrote the Clock Symphony number 101. Time is divided into Hours, seconds, thirds and event fourths.
Measurements on a sundial go like this. 15 degrees in an hour (4 per minute). 350 degrees= 24 hours. This is only possible at the poles.
The Gnomon of a sundial points to the pole star (see illustration above.)
Time and the Law
The new year used to be the 25th March. The financial year still fits with this. February mopes us the straggler days because it is at the end of the year.
Saxon time was in eight sections.
Different cultures had different lengths of the week. Egyptians had 10 days, Rome 8. The French republic had a go at change weeks and months, but it didn't catch on.
Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon, following the Spring equinox.
