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Why
do Hebrew clocks run clockwise,
not counter- clockwise?
Some do. The clock on the tower of the Prague Jewish Community Center uses Hebrew letters and runs counter-clockwise.
Most clocks use Arabic numerals,
another right-to-left language.
The
real question is why Roman numeral
clocks don't go the other way.
Note that the direction of the
written language has nothing
whatsoever
to do with the way clocks run.
The clock is a mechanical
timepiece modeled on its
predecessor, the
sundial. North of the Tropic of
Cancer, the sun affects the
sundial in
the following way:
-
Sun rises in the east: shadow
falls in the west.
-
Sun, at noon, is south: shadow
falls in the north.
-
Sun sets in the west: shadow
falls in the east.
The shadow moves in a W to N to
E rotation, which is what we
call
"clockwise." When mechanical
clocks were invented, this
rotation was
duplicated. Regardless of the
direction of your written
language, the
clock hands move the wrong way
half the time!
South of the Tropic of
Capricorn, a sundial moves
counter-clockwise,
and between the tropics, the
motion of the shadow depends on
the time
of year. Had the clock been an
invention of South American
Indians or
Southern Africans, "clockwise"
would likely mean the opposite
rotation.
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