Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? | Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains...

What do you think the world would be like if we didn't have GPS time today? What technologies that we take for granted would be impossible?

That raises the interesting question of how to scientifically define rotational direction. "Clockwise" is a word that has no meaning if you've never seen a clock. (and with digital clocks all but replacing the old analog dial clock, those people do exist!) "Righty tighty, lefty loosy" is equally ambiguous -- relative to the top of a circle.

Go to Bavaria and look at a Clock 😂

Chronometer based navigation is fascinating. That would make a good follow up to this.

Wouldn’t moonlight cast a shadow upon the sun dial though?

When the "CLOCK" was first invented, by who ever invented the first clock. There was a choice to be made as to which way the hand's would move around a center axis. For what ever reason it was choose to be while faceing the face of the clock, to the right of 12, rather than to the left of 12. Which if it had been to the left rather than the right. Would have made "CLOCKWISE" to the left rather than what it is today, to the right.

I've alway's wondered if clock's in the Southern Hemisphere run backward's. LOL

I keep my watch 10-20 min early. Even if you know that its 20 min early you will always end up following that watch to track your time

Do toilets on submarines flush backwards south of the equator?

Since our modern phones and watches are synchronized with GPS’s, wouldn’t it be possible for the powers that be to secretly alter time to their advantage? 🤔

You guys make a good point about early European sundials moving clockwise, influencing the development of mechanical clocks. However, I think you guys overestimate the importance of sundials in medieval Europe. These people relied upon many other methods too as well as sundials notably water clocks, candle timers and hourglasses.

I think the direction clocks run has more to do with the predominant reading direction of languages.


About 200 years ago, traditional Jewish communities built clocks that ran counterclockwise, which was easier for them to read as Hebrew/Yiddish is read from right to left. In Muslim countries today for example Malaysia and Saudi Arabia many prefer wearing watches that move counterclockwise.

I think you will find for a person who reads from left to right, clockwise works best while for a person who reads right to left, a counter-clockwise movement. The direction is made to match your reading habits.

no wonder we are all mostly right handed. which makes us turn most things clockwaise too

The witty comment from Chuck was under rated. "The Gnomon casts the shadow in the day light, then when its night time gNoMan can tell time."

**just because the mechanism is fabricated that way**

Depending on orbit, we could just as easily have had the watch hands go in the opposite direction. When they invented the sun dial, and the idea of North, the cemented the idea of "clockwise" into our visual memory forever.

I saw a digital watch set up as an analog watch. The numbers & hands were LEDs

Northern Hemisphere bias 🙄🤣 spoken by an Australian, we need to manufacture those counter clockwise clocks 🤔😂

Less than 3 minutes in, and already there are two errors that NDT has done here.
At the Polar Circle, the sun is NOT horizontal while it goes all the way around. That happens at the North POLE. Not at the Polar Circle.
In the Northern Hemisphere, you CAN be facing the sun AND be facing north at the same time. At the northern midsummer, if you are between the equator and the tropic, the sun will be north of you. And also at midnight north of the Polar Circle, the sun will be directly north of you.
Third error: The moss does not necessarily grow on the north side of the trees. That's a myth. It depends on the conditions at each location.

Easy. Because 1+1=2

I just have to comment again, as if my comments will be read. There is the perception that digital time is more accurate than old geezer analog time? Oh is it? I have AT&T internet, and a Google phone that is not AT&T internet powered. The time on between the two is 7 minutes different. That's pretty accurate...for ANALOG time!! HAHAHA

I'm glad I grew up in the time when we were taught to think of time geometrically. It's also great to just look at a clock and know... proportionally, how much time you have before the school bell rings. Oh, it was a long time ago. Still I use the proportional time of an analog clock and wristwatch :) And yeah, I have a Google phone! But I like my geometric time ability.

Disney made a Goofy watch that ran counter clockwise.

Great video, but... "F you, Spidey!" 😂😂😂😂😂

That isn't a question I'd have thought to ask!!

So if I'm looking down on the earth from above the north pole the earth would be turning clockwise.

Just saw this Video and thoroughly enjoyed it. I grew up with analog time pieces that you had to wind up every day and never new the answer.

Damn, you and Chuck are the only sensible people left. WTF do we do now?

You missed a point. Looking to the earth above the N pole the earth rotates counter clockwise. From the S pole opposite.

Don’t cut out the laughing joke parts!!!

Sun dials were this way seen from atop on the northern hemisphere

Tyson is wrong. The sun circles north to the tropic of cancer and stops. Then circles south to the tropic of capricorn where it stops before circling north again.
The time of the changes are the solstices.

With NDT, learning is so much fun and it makes me want to learn more.

Electric clocks -- the kind that plug in to a power outlet -- have lost accuracy from gong digital. The analog clocks were powered by motors whose speed was determined by the frequency of the A/C power. The power utilities would detect if their generators were too fast or too slow, so adjust to keep the average frequency at 60 Hz (in the U.S.). But, digital clocks with battery backup run on D/C. The information from the A/C power line that kept the clocks accurate was lost in A/C to D/C conversion. With GPS receivers, clocks are becoming more accurate again.

In on-line chat, I once made the same claim. Someone replied, according to Malcolm Gladwell, I was wrong. Gladwell said that when clocks with hands were invented, about half of them ran "clockwise" and half "counterclockwise". At some point, "clockwise" clocks became preferred and came to dominate.

I JUST came back from Nome, AK and got to experience the sun rise above the horizon and slowly move south as described by Mr. Tyson. It was an incredible and weird experience. Too bad the sun set about 4 hrs after it rose 😂

There is a soviet 24 hours watch that runs counter clockwise as well. I'm trying to get my hands on one for years.

Neil when are you going to Grow a set and debate Eric Dubay. Never because you can't you're not smart enough

In the "before-Fore" times, we drank from the garden hose. 🤣

Thank God for the phone for real😂😂

Back in the '80s I liked wearing a watch with both analog and digital displays. I was in the US Navy and I would buy the expensive quartz crystal watches and set it from the GPS receiver on board the ship. But they kept getting broken while I was working so I just switched to the cheap Timex Ironman 20 buck watches.
Then in the '00s when I started carrying a cell phone everywhere I stopped wearing a watch.

As always. Best of the best.

That was funny and instructive.

Then from there people would read left to right in the European area of the world.... I am right or wrong....That is my guess!!!!

If clocks reversed direction they would still be turning clockwise since clockwise is defined as the direction that clocks turn.

Which ever way clocks run is clockwise.

I absolutely love these explainer videos. Amd this channel.