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Why do Hebrew clocks
run clockwise, not counter- clockwise?
Some
do, but I wouldn't lose sleep over this question.
FYI, 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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