Sara Imari Walker

Like when did humanity first start abstracting and building mathematics?

Or when did we build mechanical clocks and start recognizing that we could track things at the level of seconds?

Like we had to invent seconds.

And now we take them for granted.

I don't know.

I know.

Well, all our clocks before that were based on sun.

I mean, that's just incredible.

I want to see, like, a real one.

But, I mean, this is a good thought experiment, right?

Like, imagine being one of the first people to see a mechanical clock.

Or even having a concept that you could keep time with that kind of regularity.

Because like you're saying, our clocks before were based on like sand or shadows or water.

Like they were very elemental.

Right.

And they were not incredibly precise.

And then the sort of subsequent human knowledge that comes out of timekeeping precision is things like the laws of gravitation, which we wouldn't understand.

Newton and Galileo couldn't have done what they did in their generation unless mechanical clocks existed before they did.

This is kind of like I'm going to get like this weird hobby where I'm going to become like a watchmaker.

So much cooler knowing what's going on inside.