Josh Clark
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So speaking of timekeeping, you really can kind of say the whole thing just started out with the sun.
And one of the neat things about life on Earth is that you can cast a shadow.
Most things cast a shadow, with the exception of maybe like amoebae or something like that.
But if you put like a stick in the ground...
It's going to cast shadows that move throughout the day.
And if you really pay attention to this kind of stuff, you can actually use it to track time throughout the day.
And that is almost certainly the earliest way that humans track time.
And the stick they put in the ground is widely known as a gnomon, G-N-O-M-O-N.
I also saw that it was slang in Greek for penis.
And that just... Like, hey, check out the gnomon on that guy?
If not that, but just said in ancient Greek.