History: The first mechanical clocks were in the towers of buildings and had only one hand which showed the hour in imitation of the shadow on a sundial (in the northern hemisphere which explains why the hands go clockwise).
But when it became necessary to show smaller units of time than an hour, another hand was added to show more minute /mi-NOOT/ divisions. The word attached itself to both the “minute hand” and the units it showed.
But eventually it became necessary to subdivide minutes. The first hand added was for minutes, so the second hand added was to display, of course, seconds.
(If you want citations and footnotes, go look them up yourselves. I have comics to read.)
History: The first mechanical clocks were in the towers of buildings and had only one hand which showed the hour in imitation of the shadow on a sundial (in the northern hemisphere which explains why the hands go clockwise).
But when it became necessary to show smaller units of time than an hour, another hand was added to show more minute /mi-NOOT/ divisions. The word attached itself to both the “minute hand” and the units it showed.
But eventually it became necessary to subdivide minutes. The first hand added was for minutes, so the second hand added was to display, of course, seconds.
(If you want citations and footnotes, go look them up yourselves. I have comics to read.)