EGMT 1520: Beating the Clock: Measuring and Quantifying Time

While we all experience the passage of time, it remains a remarkably difficult concept to explain. We watch time go by in the ticking of a clock or the change of the seasons, but do we all experience time the same way? How did we come to the definitions of seconds, hours, days, and years we are familiar with? What is the “start” of time, and is there only one way to best understand and measure time? How do our brains both limit and expand our ability to conceptualize time? Over seven weeks, we will explore the question of what time is and how we measure it from a variety of perspectives. We will explore the historical development of different calendar systems and time-measuring technologies. We will interrogate how societies and individuals change when time is measured differently. We will delve into how modern physics and technology define units of time, and ask whether time is a quantifiable thing in its own right as we consider the ramifications of relativity and quantum theory. We will reflect on the impact of devices that measure time on our own lives, and how different ways of measuring time impact worldviews and our sense of time itself.