[time-nuts] Widdershins

[Bob Camp]

Hi

Since most of this is Euro-centric:

Hops (and possibly other plants) cycle in a clockwise direction as they grow
in the northern hemisphere. They grow fast enough early in the season that
completing one (or more) revolutions per day is pretty normal. 

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
Behalf Of Bill Hawkins
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 2:06 PM
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
Subject: [time-nuts] Widdershins

Around 1530, it was considered very bad luck to walk around a church
widdershins (see the Wikipedia article). I think it goes back earlier
than that, to a time well before clocks.

If widdershins means counter-clockwise, how did they know which way
clocks ran?

The answer lies in northern hemisphere sundials. When clocks with
faces were invented, they ran in the same direction as the shadow
of the gnomon on a sundial.

Widdershins also means anti-sunwise, which would be blasphemous to
people that used to believe that the sun was a powerful god.

There's lots of angles to this time stuff.

Bill Hawkins


_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.