Hello to my Coxettes, it’s your handsome, well groomed mentor Prof Brian Cox here, and although i’m busily directing my servants to correctly dress my new Christmas Tree and then i’m attending a celebs only Christmas party, i’m contractually obliged to write you this missive…Therefore, I’m once again using my immense knowledge of the universe to improve your lives. Today, is known as “the shortest day” but how many of us know why? The answer isn’t easy to come by and we must venture back to the time of the baby Jesus to find out… But not literally, I can’t time travel. Yet.
In the time of Jesus no cared, or had probably notice, that each day or week were different lengths… Some days could last 26 or 27 hours, sometimes just 17 hours, weeks could go on for weeks… and they lost count of how many months were in a year or when to start or finish a year. Time was in a right old mess. And it was not helped by a lack of clocks, or watches (no one had smart phones so that way of keeping time alluded them). But one day a wiseman who’d followed yonder start to visit the baby Jesus decided enough was enough. He is quoted in the bible as saying “Due to a lack of accurate time keeping i’m not sure if we wisemen are early for the birth, just in time, or days late… We’re as dumb as the shepherds who’ve come for a gander” It was the latter statement that clearly rattled the wisemen… Something had to be done. And Jesus’s dad Joseph, being a carpenter, was called upon to help the wisemen build a time-piece. Joseph jumped at the chance, he was looking for an excuse to get back to work, leave his wife Mary and their baby and get back into his wood working shed (they were not the enlightened PC times we live in now)…
After a month or two (no one is sure how long as time was only created when the time piece was finished) the large clock was finished and set to 12.00 GMT. Thats when time began. The wisemen divided days into 24 hours and hours into 60 minutes, with each minute being one minute long (seconds weren’t invented for a few thousand years after, as the clock didn’t have a seconds hand). People were very grateful that the wisemen had invented time, they now knew when to go to bed, when to get up, eat, go to the toilet even celebrate birthdays… but as is often the way after a few years people grew bored and restless of regimented time.
To remedy this the wisemen decided that some days could be shorter than others, it added some fun to time keeping. And the Bible tells us they were fun guys, always playing tricks and telling blue jokes. So a handful of days were chosen (at random) to be a few minutes, or hours shorter… The shortest was chosen to be on the baby Jesus’s birthday. A sort of belated present. Unfortunately they got the date slightly wrong, but no one really cared. They were just pleased to have some different length days. And that is why today is considerably shorter than yesterday or tomorrow.
There you go, another “Did You Know This” fact complete. I’m off to the hospital now as I’m giving some of my DNA (from my beautiful luscious hair) to the NHS to cure all illnesses. Happy Christmas, Prof Brian Cox.
