Atlanta, Georgia
Toll Free: 1-800-270-7674
Outside US: 678-367-3781
Atlanta, Georgia
Toll Free: 1-800-270-7674
Outside US: 678-367-3781
In 1793, during the French Revolution, France tried to reinvent time. They introduced a system with 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. It matched the new metric system perfectly.
On paper, it made sense. In real life, it didn’t.
People struggled to adjust, clocks had to be redesigned, and France quickly fell out of sync with the rest of the world. To make things worse, they also introduced a 10-day week, which meant fewer rest days. That didn’t go over well. After just over a year, the whole system was scrapped.
But that failed experiment raises a bigger question. Why do we still use 24 hours, 60 minutes, and 60 seconds?
The answer goes back thousands of years. The Sumerians used a number system based on 60, likely because it was easy to divide and practical for everyday use. The Babylonians built on that for astronomy, breaking time into smaller units. Around the same time, the Egyptians divided the day into 24 parts based on the sun and stars.
Over time, these systems blended together and stuck. Not because they were perfect, but because they worked.
And as France discovered, once something becomes part of daily life, changing it is a lot harder than it sounds.
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