9781422283363

WHAT ’S THE T IME? People weren’t always so concerned about keeping a close watch on time. They relied on events in the world around them, such as the rising of the Sun or the coming of winter, to order their lives. They weren’t really very bothered about unimportant things such as knowing how old they were. The invention of the

clock changed people’s lives completely. They became more aware of time. They started to worry about time passing. They wanted to save time. What is it that is so special about time? It doesn’t seem to be like anything else. Often you will hear people talking about time as if it were something that had a length. “That took a long time,” they might say. Sometimes you might hear someone say, “Time hangs heavy on my hands,” as though time had weight. You can

In different times and places throughout history people have used calendars to help them keep track of events. Some

take a ruler and measure the length of the book and it will always be the same length. You can put it on some scales and weigh it and it will always be the same weight. But how do you measure something you can’t see or feel, like time? Sometimes it seems that you can’t rely on your watch to tell how much time has passed. How long do you mean when you talk about a long time ? When you are happy and enjoying what you are doing, time seems to fly past. If you are bored, time seems to pass slowly. Yet a book will always be the same length whatever mood you are in! calendars look very different from the one we use today—this splendid example was devised by the Aztecs who lived in Mexico over 500 years ago.

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