Our ability to measure time is one of the fundamental things which makes us human.

We've gone from very crude and inexact measures of time to time measurements which are so

accurate it would take billions of years to lose a single second.

This increased accuracy has allowed

us to navigate the seas, space, and even get directions to a nearby store.

Learn about the history of how we keep time on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.com. If you're interested in how we keep time,

the audio book I would recommend is Longitude. The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel.

She tells the story of John Harrison who developed the first highly accurate mechanical clocks which could be taken on ships to track position a longitude.

B hollow Harrison over several decades, as he improved his clocks to win a 20,000 pound prize from the British Parliament.

You can get a free one month trial to audible and two free audio books

by going to audible trial.com slash everything everywhere

or by clicking on the link in the show notes.

Early humans didn't have the need for accurate time measurement,

nor did they care.

The schedules followed the sun and there was little

which occurred during the day which required accurate coordination. As agriculture

developed and civilization arose, the need for some sort of basic time organization arose with it.

The first real system of keeping time was the Sundial.

The oldest node Sundial dates back to 1500 BC and was found in Egypt.

Sundials were fine for what they were used for but they had

several obvious drawbacks. They were useless if the sun wasn't out or at night. Candles were often used

to keep time at night, so long as the candles were made consistently out of the same material and were the same shape,

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