Ke (unit)
Ke (
Hanzi: 刻;
Pinyin: kè) is a traditional
decimal time unit lasting approximately a
quarter of a western
hour. Traditionally it is equal to 14
minutes, 24
seconds (14.4 min) or
one-hundredth of a
day. For its entire recorded history of two or three millennia the
ke had been used in
China alongside
duodecimal units of time.
The
ke divided a
day into 100 equal intervals thus forming a true
centiday (cd).
[According to the Shuowen Jiezi" from Xu Shen, "漏以"壶盛水，刻节，昼夜百刻。" (translation: Drop waters from a copper/bronze container with water inside. The time spent is measured. We can thus divide a whole day into 100 measures.)] The
French revolutionaries in the
18th century were unaware of the successful adoption of decimal time using the ke
and did not utilize the familiar quarter of an hour in their reform.
Alongside the ke
, the ancient Chinese kept time with double hours (Traditional: 時辰; Simplified: 时辰; Pinyin: shíchen
) also known as watches. Because one cannot divide 12 double hours into 100 ke
evenly, each ke
was subdivided into 60 fen
(Hanzi: 分; Pinyin: f"n)). Additionally there had been various reform attempts to redefine the ke
to 96, 108, or 120 so as to divide evenly into 12 double hours. During the Qing dynasty and at the time of the arrival of Jesuit missionaries, the duration of the ke
was finally redefined to 96 in a day, or one fourth of a western hour. Today ke'' is still commonly used in
China to refer to a quarter of an hour.
*
Chinese calendar*
Decimal timeOther references:
*
Ronan, Colin p.247-250 in Walker, Ch. ed.:
Astronomy before the telescope. Brit.Museum P., UK (1999). ISBN 0714127337
