In today's world, knowing the exact time is as essential as air. Business, business meetings, departures and departures, logistics, leisure… In fact, everything requires notification of the exact time.

However, there are situations when conditions do not allow determining the exact time, and there are no watches at hand. On a hiking trip, walking in unknown surroundings, going into the forest to hunt, picking mushrooms, the presence of orientation skills in the sun is a must. Of course, now it is difficult to find a person who does not have a mobile phone. Many people almost always carry other gadgets (tablets, laptops), wristwatches, but there is always the possibility of a breakdown, loss or discharge of the device.

When it comes to your own survival, knowing how to tell time from the sun can be vital.

So, we learn to take this most important information from the sun.

Watch the location of the sun

So, first you need to determine the location of the sun. To do this, follow a few simple instructions.

• If you are in the northern hemisphere, stand with your back to the north. If you are in the southern hemisphere, stand with your back to the south.
• When you stand with your back to the north, the east will be on the left, but if you stand with your back to the south, the east will be on the right.

If you do not have a compass with you, determine the sides of the horizon using well-known signs: anthills like to be located on the south side of a tree. If you are in the forest, look for moss on a tree trunk. It grows on the north side.

Determine the equator line

• Look towards the east and west, find the approximate location of the equator line.

In the first half of the day - until noon, the sun will be in the east side, in the afternoon, that is, after lunch, the sun will move to the west side.

• When you are close to the polar regions, and the sun does not disappear below the horizon even at night, keep in mind that it is least visible at midnight.
• If the luminary is located in the center of both sides of the world, in other words, at the equator, then it is now noon, that is, 12 noon.

If the sun is not located strictly along the equator, but with a shift in some direction, you can calculate the time using the following tips.

Focus on the time of year

To determine the time more or less accurately, you need to take into account the time of year, because in winter the days are shorter, and in summer they are much longer.

In the cold season, the day lasts no longer than 10 hours, but in the hot months it lasts no less than 14. In the off-season (autumn, spring), the length of the day is approximately equal to the night, and is about 12 hours.

Conditionally dividing the arc of the sun into even segments, count how many such segments the sun has passed. So, if the luminary has overcome 4 such segments, then you add 4 hours to the time of sunrise of the daytime luminary. If you know the exact time when the sun rises, you can more or less accurately determine the current time.

Incredible Facts

People began to measure time relatively recently in relation to our entire long history. The desire to synchronize our actions came about 5000-6000 years ago, when our nomadic ancestors began to populate the land and build civilizations. Before that, we divided time only into day and night, namely: bright days for hunting and work, and dark nights for sleep. But since people began to feel the need to coordinate their actions for holding public meetings and similar events, they considered it necessary to introduce a time measurement system.

To be sure, scientists will tell you that we are deceiving ourselves when we think we are actually keeping track of time. "The difference between past, present and future is just a persistent illusion," said Albert Einstein. His daily walks near the clock tower in Bern, Switzerland, led the scientist to some world-changing ideas about the nature of time.

However, whether time is real or not, its dimension has nonetheless become vital to us. Over the centuries, people have come up with various creative methods of timekeeping, from the simplest sundials to atomic clocks. Below are different ways to measure time, some of them are the latest and some are as old as time itself.

The sun

Ancient people turned to nature to create the first timekeeping. People began to track the movement of the Sun across the sky, and then began to use objects to measure changes. The Egyptians are supposed to have been the first to create timekeeping science. In 3500 B.C. they erected obelisks and placed them in strategic places where, at certain times, "instruments" would cast shadows. At first glance, these obelisks could only mark the arrival of noon, but then they began to make deeper subdivisions.

Two thousand years later, the Egyptians developed the first sundial, the "dial" of which was divided into 10 parts. The sundial worked by tracking the movement of the sun. When the clock showed noon, it was necessary to move the clock hand 180 degrees in order to measure the afternoon time. Of course, the ancient sundial could not tell the exact time on a cloudy day or at night. In addition, the time shown by the sundial was inaccurate, since at different times of the year the hours were shorter or longer depending on the season. However, a sundial was better than nothing, and by 30 B.C. more than 30 different types of clocks were used in Greece, Italy and Asia Minor. Even today, the sun is at the heart of our timing system. We have created planetary time zones in order to simulate the rotation of the Earth around the Sun.

Stars

The ancient Egyptians are believed to have developed the first way of telling time at night, inventing the first astronomical instrument, the merkhet, around 600 BC. The tool is a taut string with a weight that works the same way a carpenter uses a plumb bob today.

Egyptian astronomers used two merkhets oriented to the North Star in order to identify the celestial meridian in the night sky. Time was counted according to the principle of crossing this meridian by the stars.

Stars were used not only to mark the passage of hours, but also the passage of days. This measurement of the Earth's rotation is called sidereal time.

When a certain imaginary point among the stars crosses the celestial meridian, then this moment is designated as sidereal noon. The time that has passed from one sidereal noon to another is called a sidereal day.

Hourglass

The origin of the hourglass goes far back in time. They consist of two glass flasks, one on top of the other with a narrow opening between them. Sand gradually gets from the top to the bottom when the watch is turned over. When all the sand has passed from the top to the bottom, this means that the time is up, however, this does not always mean that an hour has passed.

An hourglass can be made to measure almost any short period of time by simply adjusting the amount of sand it contains, or the opening between the flasks.

water clock

The water clock, known as the "clepsydra", was one of the first devices that did not use the sun or stars to measure time, meaning it could be used at any time of the day.

Water clocks work by measuring the amount of water that drips from one container into another. They were invented in Egypt, but spread throughout the ancient world, and in some countries people used water clocks even in the 20th century.

The ancient Greeks and Romans built large water clocks in the form of towers, and in China such clocks were called "Lu" and were often made of bronze. However, although water clocks were very common, they were not entirely accurate.

Mechanical watches

In Europe, in the 1300s, inventors began making mechanical clocks that worked with a system of weights and springs. These first watches did not have a front and hands, and the passage of the hour was indicated by a bell. In fact, the word clock comes from the French "bell". These huge first clocks, as a rule, were installed in churches and monasteries in order to announce the time of the arrival of the need to pray.

Soon there were watches with two hands, minute and hour. Later, table and mantel clocks began to appear. Although the clock was improved, it was still inaccurate. In 1714, the British Parliament offered a handsome reward to anyone who could develop an accurate clock that would aid the work of maritime navigation. As a result, such clocks were invented, their error was only five seconds. With the advent of the industrial revolution, the mass production of watches began, thanks to which this device got into the house of every person.

Fancy watch

When we think of watches, we tend to think of the familiar dial with two or perhaps three hands. For many centuries, people have created all kinds of designs in order to determine the time. The Chinese invented the incense clock between 960 and 1279, and then it spread throughout East Asia. In one type of incense clock, metal balls were attached to incense with wire. When the incense burned down, the metal ball fell and a gong sounded, indicating the passage of an hour.

Other watches used color in their work, and some used different scents to represent different periods of time. There were also watches made from a marked candle, when the candle burned down to a certain mark, then a specified period of time passed.

Wrist watch

The discovery in the 1400s that spiral springs could be reduced in size led to the creation of wristwatches. At that time and for many centuries after that, pocket watches were the priority of men, while women wore wristwatches. All these fashion rules changed during the Second World War, and as a result, since then, men began to wear wristwatches. The gift of a watch symbolized the transition to maturity.

However, as the 21st century develops, the ubiquitous wristwatch may gradually fade into oblivion, since now we most often check the time by looking at a computer monitor, mobile phone or MP3 player display. However, still an informal survey of several thousand people showed that most of them are not going to give up their watches.

Quartz watch

Mineral quartz, usually with the help of a battery, is the main driving force behind quartz watches.

Quartz is a piezoelectric material, which means that when a quartz crystal is compressed, it generates a small amount of electrical current that causes the crystal to vibrate. All quartz crystals vibrate at the same frequency.

Quartz watches use a battery to create a crystal vibration and to count vibrations. Thus, the system operates in such a way that one pulse per second is generated. Quartz watches still dominate the market due to their precision and low manufacturing cost.

atomic clock

Although the name sounds quite intimidating, in fact, atomic clocks do not pose any danger. They measure time by tracking how long it takes one atom to go from positive to negative energy state and back again.

The official time standard for the United States is set by NIST F-1, the atomic clock of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. The NIST F-1 is a fountain clock named after the atomic movement. Scientists inject cesium gas into the watch's vacuum center and then add direct infrared laser beams at a 90-degree angle. The power of the laser collects all the atoms in one place, which is affected by the microwave-filled area with great force. Scientists measure the number of atoms that are in an altered state, and also control microwaves by setting them at different frequencies until most of the atoms change their state. As a result, the last frequency at which atoms change is the frequency of vibrations of cesium atoms, which is equal to a second. It sounds quite complicated, however, this technology is the world standard for measuring time.

Atomic clocks keep track of the smallest changes in time.

Calendars

As we have seen, the actual counting of minutes and seconds requires quite complex procedures, but the counting of days and months is based on the position of the sun and moon. Different cultures, however, use different methods.

The Christian or Gregorian calendar, one of the most popular today, is based on the sun. The Islamic calendar uses the phases of the moon, the Hebrew and Chinese calendars rely on a combination of both.

In the Gregorian calendar, a day is the time elapsed from one sunrise to the next, or one full revolution of the Earth on its axis. A month, according to the Gregorian calendar, is approximately 29.5 days, which is one complete cycle of the phases of the moon, and a year is 364.24 days, or the time it takes for the Earth to make a full circle in the orbit of the Sun.

How to determine the time by the sun

Determining the time by the sun in a certain situation can help you out, for example, you will know the exact time if you forgot your watch at home and do not miss the bus or train. The method of determining time by the sun is useful not only for travelers and summer residents, but also for all other people who do not have watches. There are different ways to determine the time by the sun, in fact, we will tell you about them today.

HOW TO KNOW THE TIME FROM THE SUN IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE OF THE EARTH

So, to determine the time by the sun, you will need to make (make) the simplest sundial. To do this, you need to determine the exact direction of the cardinal points, a thin stick and the sun. The easiest way to tell time from the sun is to make a sundial out of a compass and a match.

HOW TO DETERMINE THE TIME BY THE SUN WITH A MATCH AND A COMPASS: Set the compass on a flat surface, then accurately determine the direction of the cardinal direction NORTH, set the compass dial so that the compass needle points to the north and compass number 180 degrees azimuth. Place a match exactly on the center of the compass. Everything, the sundial is ready. Now, in order to determine the time from the sun and the given sundial, you need to look at where the shadow of the match falls. It turns out that if the shadow indicates 180 degrees on the dial, this is equal to 12 o'clock in the afternoon, if 270 degrees, then this equals 18 o'clock, and 90 degrees 6 in the morning. It turns out that one hour of time is equal to 15 degrees on the compass. With this definition of time by the sun, it is necessary that the sun shines directly on the compass and match.

HOW TO MAKE A PROFESSIONAL SUNDIAL A: In this case, it will take a little more effort. We will not tell you how to carve a sundial out of wood, since no one will spend time on it on a hike, but we will tell you how to make a sundial on the sand or on the ground and determine the time with the help of the sun. So, for example, you are fishing on the river bank, and you periodically need to know the time, but you don’t want to constantly get the compass and carry out the above manipulations. To do this, you can make a professional sundial on sand or earth, for which you need to draw on the ground a kind of compass with a degree scale (the figure should point strictly to the north with the number 180) and put a long stick in the center, from which a shadow will fall by degrees, and show time. And even in place of degrees you can write the numbers of time. The sun will move across the horizon, the shadow will move, and you will always determine and know the time.

All other methods will not give you an accurate determination of time by the sun, for example, you cannot determine the exact time by sunrise and sunset, since not everyone can know what time sunrise and sunset occur, because it varies depending on the month of the year.

HOW TO KNOW THE TIME FROM THE SUN IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE OF THE EARTH

In the southern hemisphere of the earth, the time according to the sun and the compass is recognized in the same way as in the northern hemisphere, except that the compass needle should not point north, but south.

HOW TO KNOW THE TIME FROM THE SUN AT THE EQUATOR

At the equator, the sun passes exactly above the horizon, so you don’t need to know the direction of the north, and to determine the time from the sun, you need to make the same clock as in the first case, but only place them not horizontally, but vertically.

SUNDIAL ERROR

You must remember that you will determine the physical time using the methods described above, but it may differ from the actual time in your region. So, for example, Moscow actual time is 12:00, at the same minute, according to the law of Russia, the actual time in Kazan is 12:00, but the physical time determined by the sun in Kazan is 13:00, since the distance between Moscow and Kazan equals approximately one geographic time zone, and if you take into account the transition to summer and winter time, then the difference can be 2 hours. Therefore, make a sundial, compare it with the actual time and make adjustments. Thus, for the future, you will know how to make an amendment when determining the time using a sundial.

Legendary Thirty, route

Through the mountains to the sea with a light backpack. Route 30 passes through the famous Fisht - this is one of the most grandiose and significant natural monuments in Russia, the highest mountains closest to Moscow. Tourists travel lightly through all the landscape and climatic zones of the country from the foothills to the subtropics, spending the night in shelters.