an essay on the different methods of timekeeping that have been used through the ages?
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An essay? You have to write an essay for school and you want someone to write an essay for you? What on earth? \n\nWhy don't you look on the web and do your own research? What is wrong with you? \n\n\nI will give you a little bit to get you started. \n\n1. There is a HUGE amount of documentation for water clocks during the time of the Greeks and Romans. \n\n2. For millenia, the movement of the stars and other celestial bodies was used for time keeping. Look at stonehenge and the Mayan calendars for examples of ancient uses of astronomy for time keeping. \n \n\n3. Springs and gears are another mechanism that came later (I think the spring is called an escapement mechanism).\n\n4. You should check out the device called the antikythera  mechanism, which might have been some sort of clock.\n\n4. There were atomic clocks developed after atomic physics was discovered. \n\n6. Quart crystals made accurate and cheap wrist watches available. \n\n\n7. The pendulum of course was well-known. I think it was Galileo that timed it with his own pulse and realized that a pendulum was regular.\n \nThere is a lot more to this subject. Look on the internet. Go to wikipedia.
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Hmmm.. People have been measuring time since antiquity. At first they used the position of the sun in the sky (or the stars at night) and the variations due to the seasons. Water clocks were often used in antiquity also, but they were not very accurate.\n\nMechanical clocks of reasonable accuracy became possible after 1200 with the invention of what is called the 'escapement mechanism', but at that time an accuracy of within an hour over a month was good.\n\nGalileo used a pendulum to control the accuracy of clocks about 1600 and this, with the escapement mechanism lead to a greatly improved accuracy then. Several modifications were made for the next century or so and by the middle 1700s the accuracy was within one second over a few months. This lead to the solution of the 'longitude problem'.
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A long long time ago.
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It is supposed to be more than 2000 years.\nSee reference article.
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As time goes on\nAs time went on\nLater on\nEventually
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Twenty-four.\n\nAccording to modern usage.  There have been different divisions in the past used by different cultures: an eight-hour day, a twelve-hour day.
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What you want to do is best done by a science called Dendrochronology:\n \nology: the study of \nchronos: time, or more specifically events in past time \ndendros: using trees, or more specifically the growth rings of trees \n\nApplications in dendrochronology include: \necology: insect outbreaks, forest stand structure, past fires\nclimatology: past droughts or cold periods \ngeology: past earthquakes, volcanic eruptions \nanthropology: past construction, habitation, and abandonment of societies\n\nGo to the site in the url and you can learn a lot of real information, not media hype about global warming.\n\nPS. The thermometer was only invented a few hundred years ago. No record of temperatures older than that exists. But old wood lasts for thousands of years and is a true account of local conditions. \n\nEnjoy! It is a fascinating science.
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For contemporary Neo-Pagans, we "measure" time the same way as others--with standard chronometric terms.\n\nBut, as I think you mean, how do we describe and how do we conceptualize time--that's a different subject.\n\nHow Pagans describe time:\nWe describe years using, much as many non-Christians in the West do, the CE/BCE designations for years.  This is not 2006 Anno Domini (Our Lord)--for the Christian figure Jesus is not our Lord.  For us, as for Jews, it is the year 2006 Common Era, and similarly Hesiod wrote in the 8th century BCE (Before Common Era).  \n\nHow Pagans conceptualize time:\nTime is essentially cyclical, with some linear features.  The same basic processes repeat themselves endlessly in the Universe, but there is also change and a narrative progression (this latter process would be historical change, which we see as real but secondary to cosmological cyclicality).  \n\nThe most important units of cyclical time:\n(1)  The Wheel of the Year: too complex to discuss at this length, the Wheel of the Year is the basic time motif of Pagan thought.  It is the procession of the seasons, the lunar and solar year, and the eight Wiccan waypoints along the year.\n(2)  The Ages of the Person:  human life-cycles are also part of the unfolding of time.  Most Neo-Pagan traditions use the life-cycle of the human individual to talk about our individual lives in the larger flow of time.\n(3)  The Lunar Cycle:  The 28-day lunar cycle is, like the solar year, one of the two pillars of the Pagan liturgical calendar.  It maps the principle of cyclical flow, the hidden and mysterious qualities of Being.\n(4)  The Day:  Like the Year and the Ages of the Person, each Day corresponds to the Wiccan  magical circle (East/South/West/North), traveling from Dawn to Noon to Twilight to Midnight and back to Dawn.  The solar Day, the lunar Month, and the lunar-solar conjoined Year together with the individualized Life-Cycle describe our interdependent relationship with the Earth and Heavens around us, our inextricable place in the Great Web of Being.\n\nThere is much, much more to be said about this.  But Yahooo Answers lends itself to the terse version.
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Here's one:\nhttp://www.fcps.edu/westspringfieldhs/academic/english/1project/99gg/99gg4/timelin1.htm\n\nAnd:\nhttp://users.adelphia.net/~hallamd/gatsbywebpage/timeline.html
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IN NEARLY A COUPLE OF CENTURIES ,IF MAN USES IT CAREFULLY OR ELSE IN 1 CENTURY.
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Some used used a sun dial. Others used small pebbles to count days or sun ups and sun downs.
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Here it is - in lots of places around the world.\nhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_clock
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for correct tracking of time
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In the middle ages and renaissance in Europe, originally in their own clock towers with pendulums and wooden gears.\n\nFrom Wikipedia:  \n\n"Early mechanical clocks\nThere is a record that in 1176 Sens Cathedral installed a ‘horologe’—the word still used in French for large clocks. (from Greek hora, hour, and legein, to tell). This word has led scholars to believe that these tower clocks did not employ hands or dials, but “told” the time with audible signals such as bells.\n\nBetween 1280 and 1320 there is a sudden increase in references to clocks and horologes in church records, and this probably indicates that a new type of clock mechanism had been devised. Existing clock mechanisms that used water power were being adapted to take the driving power from falling weights. This power was controlled by some form of oscillating mechanism, probably derived from existing bell-ringing or alarm devices. This controlled release of power - the escapement - marks the beginning of the true mechanical clock.\n\nThese mechanical clocks were intended for two main purposes: for signalling and notification (e.g. the timing of services and public events), and for modelling the solar system. The former purpose is administrative, the latter arises naturally given the scholarly interest in astronomy, science, astrology, and how these subjects integrated with the religious philosopy of the time. The astrolabe was used both by astronomers and astrologers, and it was natural to apply a clockwork drive to the rotating plate to produce a working model of the solar system.\n\nSimple clocks intended mainly for notification were installed in towers, and did not always require dials or hands. They would have announced the canonical hours or intervals between set times of prayer. Canonical hours differ in length, and varied as the times of sunrise and sunset shifted. The more sophisticated astronomical clocks would have had dials and hands, and would have used various time systems, including Italian hours, canonical hours, and time as measured by astronomers at the time. Both styles of clock quickly started acquiring extravagant features such as automata.\n\nBy 1280 mechanical clock-making began in England, Italy, and France. In 1283 a large clock was installed at Dunstable Priory; its location above the rood screen suggests that it was not a water clock. In 1292, Canterbury Cathedral installs a 'great horloge'. Over the next 30 years there are brief mentions of clocks at a number of ecclesiastical institutions in England, Italy, and France. In 1322 a new clock was installed in Norwich, an expensive replacement for an earlier clock installed in 1273. This had a large 2 metre astronomical dial with automata and bells. The costs of the installation included the full-time employment of two technicians for two years.\n\nThe clocks constructed by Richard of Wallingford in St Albans by 1336, and by Giovanni da Dondi in Padua from 1348 to 1364, no longer exist but detailed descriptions of their design and construction survive, and modern reproductions have been made. They illustrate how quickly the theory of the mechanical clock had developed. It is not known how accurate or reliable these clocks would have been."
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Apparently this is a book that deals with the Agrarian Age\nhttp://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/7f2ab8cafa4c6901.html\nAnd then there was this.\nBy W. Gerald Rainer, MD\nIn his book The Third Wave, Alvin Toffer arbitrarily divides recent time into three periods:\n\n·         I. Agrarian Age ca 8000 BC - 1700 AD\n\n·         II. Industrial Revolution 1700 - 1955\n\n·         III. Technologicval Age 1955 - Present\n\nDuring the Agrarian Age, man stayed and worked near home, did little traveling, measured time by the sun, and had little distant communication.\n\nWith the advent of the Industrial Revolution, man responded by becoming subservient to routine: 8-5 workdays, alarm clocks, working outside the home, early devices for more distant communication, and travel, sometimes for relatively long distances.\n\nPresently, during the Technological era (arbitrarily defined as the beginning of jet travel) and with increasingly sophisticated means of travel and communication, man finds him/herself less constrained by regular work hours and workplaces. Much work can be performed out of the home (if one wishes) and at any time of the day or night. Travel is rapid and communication almost instantaneous.\n\nThe relative durations of these three periods:\n\n·         Nearly 10,000 years\n\n·         205 years\n\n·         50+ years\n\ngive us reason to pause and reflect upon the incredible rapidity with which change is taking place, and makes one wonder how fast and in what manner new developments will be thrust upon us in the near future.\n\nUsing various modalities such as video conferencing, telephone communications, e-mails, and interactive programming, the need for large scientific congresses and seminars has been questioned. Considerable economic savings can be had by avoiding travel expenses, costs of convention housing and exhibition facilities, and staff planning expenses. Virtual meetings can be conducted without the need for one to leave home or office. What a remarkable possibility compared with only a few decades ago!\n\nWhat's wrong with this picture?\n\nAs economical and efficient as this high-tech scenario is painted, certain indipensible elements are missing --- the enormous and lasting value of human interchange; the handshake; the eye to eye contact; the opportunity for contemporaneous discussion and debate; the opportunity to make lasting friendships based on close professional and personal relationships; and the ability to collaborate freely with colleagues for the purpose of jointly developing new ideas, techniques, and novel approaches to problems because of the environment made possible only by intimate discussion and contact, and impossible by our wonderful, highly efficient modern technology that is so marvelous and yet so cold, impersonal and unfeeling.\n\nThis brings to mind the prescient observation of a philosopher of more than four centuries ago:\n\nNo man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the\ncontinent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by\nthe Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were,\nas well as if a Mannor of thy friends, or of thine owne were;\nAny mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in\nMankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the\nbell tolls, it tolls for thee.\nJohn Donne Meditations XVII, 1624
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www.electronictimecapsule.com