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1. The reason that clocks turn clockwise has to do with sundials, which were the first clocks. In the northern hemisphere, the earth rotates counter-clockwise, which means that from our point of view the sun appears to move across the sky in a clockwise direction. Therefore, if you build a sundial to tell time, the shadows will move across it in a clockwise direction. With mechanical clocks, you could of course make them go around either way, but the earliest ones were presumably designed to turn the same way the shadows on a sundial do, simply because that’s what people were used to.
Source: Curious about Astronomy, last accessed 22 August 2006

2. Clocks were invented in the Northern Hemisphere where the Sun goes ‘clockwise’ (left to right) across the sky. If clocks had been invented in the Southern Hemisphere, where the Sun goes from right to left across the sky, clocks would have 9 where 3 is and 3 where 9 is.
Source: SunShip 2006 , last acessed 22 August 2006

Answered by Michelle Kwok, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

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