时钟为何顺时针而转？.docVIP

时钟为何顺时针而转？ 　　Time to get dressed！ 　　Time for school！ 　　Time for dinner！ 　　Time for bed！ 　　Old Father Time can be quite an interfering busybody2） and there really is nothing we can do. Most of us spend a greater part of our time and lives trying to beat exactly this―time！ 　　Strangely enough the clocks hands seem to take forever to inch3） forward during a dull lesson， while time really flies when we are having a good time！ We surround ourselves with alarm clocks， cuckoo clocks， wristwatches， grandfather clocks4） and peer at them to make sure we are sticking to our schedule. But have you ever taken a moment to wonder why the hands on the face of a clock move the way they do？ Why do the hour and minute hands move from left to right （in what is now called the clockwise direction） and not vice-versa？ No， it is not the whim5） of the inventor. Actually there is a scientific explanation for this observation. 　　Throughout history， time has been measured by the movement of the Sun （or， more accurately， the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun）. The earliest form of timekeeping dates as far back as 3500 B.C. This was the shadow clock or the sundials6）―a vertical stick or obelisk7） that casts a shadow. An example of this clock can be seen at Jantar Mantar8） in Delhi. 　　People had already realised that the Earth is round and that it revolves around the Sun. So for ages people measured time based on the position of the Sun―it was noon when the Sun was highest in the sky. 　　The earliest clocks were invented in China around 100 A.D. based on these earlier sundials， which were simple devices that marked the movement of the Sun with the movement of the Earth. 　　Mechanical clocks were invented in the Northern Hemisphere in the 14th century and the inventors naturally wanted the device to follow the Suns movement in the sky. In the Northern Hemisphere the Sun appears to move in the sky from the left to the right and so the hands of the clock were made to follow the Suns mot