You can consider this installment four of my previous question which is the third installment.
Throughout history, we have developed many methods of telling time. The most famous two examples being the clock and the sundial. The ancient Egyptians invented the clepsydra, an extremely simple device that uses dripping water as a way to tell how much time has passed. There are also, for example, hourglasses, which flow sand as a measurement of time.
Suppose, though, you were an intelligent dolphin and, for some reason, had to always have a time reference on you. Being under the water seems to present a challenge, for technology like clocks and hourglasses don’t seem to be possible to make under the water, a clepsydra certainly wouldn’t work since you can’t pour water underwater, and a sundial wouldn’t have the proper lighting. So you must improvise in order to find a way to keep track of time. How would you improvise in order to keep track of time.
You’ll find time loses importance once you no longer have to manage it.
Mammals have to breathe, so they are surfacing from time to time… so roughly they’ll know day from night.
Tides are mostly noticeable near land.
So you have deep sea creatures away from shore. They mostly won’t care about day and night as there’s no difference, with light not penetrating more that about 200 feet.
So below 200 feet, and away from shore you mostly can’t. But also it would not matter as there’s no difference
But if you were a human, in a submarine or a diving vessel where you needed to know, a clock or radio… would be about the options
A reverse clepsydra: an air-filled container that releases bubbles at a constant rate.
If I were an Intelligent sea creature I would just use my waterproof watch but idk about others
The tides?
Shadows can still cast underwater, so you could use a rock as a sundial or just how light it is at a certain depth.
🐬 Improvised Underwater Timekeeping for Dolphins:
An intelligent dolphin could adapt to underwater timekeeping by observing natural cycles, biological cues, and marine phenomena. Here’s how:
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Harnessing Natural Rhythms
• Tidal Changes: Dolphins could monitor the ebb and flow of tides, which occur predictably based on the lunar cycle. Changes in water current speed, temperature, or pressure could serve as cues for time measurement. • Day-Night Cycles: Despite being underwater, ambient light penetration varies with time of day. Dolphins with sensitive vision could detect shifts in light intensity or color. • Marine Sounds: The ocean environment is rich with natural sounds that vary throughout the day, such as coral reef activity during daylight hours or nocturnal hunting sounds.
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Biological Cues
• Internal Circadian Rhythms: Dolphins have well-developed biological clocks that could help them estimate time intervals based on their innate circadian rhythms. • Heartbeat or Breathing Patterns: They could track their heart rate or breathing intervals to measure short durations.
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Environmental Markers
• Bubble Streams: Dolphins could use their breath to create bubble trails or patterns and observe their rise time or behavior as a rough timing mechanism. • Floating Particles: They could monitor the sinking or rising of particles like algae or debris to estimate time.
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Intelligence and Communication
• Echo-Location as a Timer: Dolphins use echolocation effectively. They might develop a way to measure time based on how long sound waves take to bounce back from consistent underwater structures. • Social Synchronization: In groups, they could rely on collective signals, such as patterned clicks or whistles, to denote the passage of specific intervals.
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Innovative Tools
• Natural Hourglasses: They could manipulate objects like sediment-filled shells, observing how long it takes particles to settle or rise when shaken. • Thermal Layers: Dolphins could detect thermal gradients or changes in water temperature at specific times of day.
I was also immediately thinking of tides as a time measurent. Relying on moon cycles gets you out of sync with solar years pretty quickly (os thqt important underwater? You probably do get seasonal changes?), I wonder if you could detect sunlight intensity changes or something and then do the whole solar / lunar calendar leap-day shebang we do …
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Wtf would I care? It’s not Like I’m gonna have have office hours. Hungry? Dinner time!
this is the way. retvrn to water monke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_(novel)
Tides
How would you measure that when not at a shore?
You’d think this would be obvious. Plus tides aren’t tied to the sun but the moon. You’d practically need an underwater Antikythera mechanism to keep track.
