• Question: Time makes helps us in so many ways, without time nobody would know when to meet eachother, or when to go anywhere and so on... if time was not invented we would be lossed in our way (dont you agree?) so if time was not invented (erase time from your mind) what would you (as a scientist) invent/investigste to help us no where to go and when to go or would you carry on letting everyone be lost? (a bit tricky but o well) :)

    Asked by balletbecca to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Hi balletbecca!

      Great question! I think the need for time is a very modern thing, and really depends on where and how we live. If you live in a small tribe on a beach, then meeting up isn’t that hard. Actually many peoples live with languages that don’t contain any words for time at all – the Amondawa and Pirahã tribes in the Amazon rainforest doen’t use any time words like year, month, hour at all!

      So I think it’s possible to live without a separate idea of time. Time feels very relative anyway, a minute of boredom can seem like forever and three hours with your best friend pass in no time!

      But I would invent the sun dial and the telescope for being able to tell the time during the day and during the night.

      How about you?

      🙂 Sarah

    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Hiya – great question – Something to match the one constant that we’d all be experiencing and that’s the position of the sun in the sky – its really difficult to come up with something that hasn’t already been used, but mapping out our position and time from the position of the sun in the different seasons and at different times of the day really was a great leap forward for civilisation.

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