PPB April 2021

by Kristina Valdez Of The Essence People have been keeping track of time for over a millennium. Beginning with the earliest known sundial that divided the day into hours, timepieces have since evolved markedly, breaking down the hours into minutes and the minutes into seconds. Timekeeping is crucial in our complex, busy and on-the-go society and, combined with other functions, time products will continue to be vital in our day-to-day lives. K eeping track of time is an innate ability that all life forms are born with. All living creatures must know the time to adjust to their environment as it changes. For example, when winter is over, bears wake from hibernation, flowers bloom and birds return from their migration south. Even humans have evolved with internal clocks, known as a circadian rhythm, that regulate our sleep-wake cycle in tune with each rotation of the Earth. But unlike other creatures, humans have gotten more precise at tracking time. As our society has become increasingly complex, people have been forced to think about time differently. For the forager living 100,000 years ago, the rhythms of the natural world were the only timekeepers. No special instruments were required with the sun and the stars to follow, and aligning activities up with those of their friends and family was effortless in small, foraging communities. But for emerging agricultural societies, they needed more reliable and accurate methods of keeping time to know when to plant crops or sell vegetables at the nearby village. A standard measurement of time that everyone agreed on was now key to an orderly society. German scholar Norbert Time Pr oduc t s GROW 44 | APRIL 2021 |