Measuring and keeping time must have interested our prehistoric ancestors, and it became a necessity as soon as humans began to build societies. This course will explore the concept of time in several of its aspects and survey calendaring systems and measuring units, both of which were based first on the observation of nature and then on the continuous discovery of physical laws. We will examine these physical laws and discuss how their discovery resulted in more accuracy and precision, which in turn led to previously unimagined applications.

We will also examine tangible, in a sense “everyday” experiences and discover the physics behind them. We will also discuss the typical length of time various processes in nature take, from the very short to the very long. While looking at the very long, we'll briefly touch on the question: will time end?

While time and timekeeping are subjects rich in physics, no prior knowledge of physics is required.