Posted By David Kenner Share

Forget the clash of civilizations -- the next grand battle between East and West will be over Time itself. The world's largest clock is currently under construction in the Islamic holy city of Mecca, with the goal of moving Greenwich Mean Time to the Saudi Arabian city. The clock will tick off its first seconds tomorrow, one day after the beginning of Ramadan.

The clock itself bears a resemblance to Big Ben -- if Ben was on steroids. Its four faces, each 151 feet in diameter, will be lit with two million LED lights. It will sit on top of a tower that stretches 1,983 feet in the air. By comparison, Big Ben's faces are merely 23 feet in diameter, and its tower is only 316 feet tall. The tower also has some Islamic touches that are all its own: Arabic script reading "In the Name of Allah" runs below the clock faces, and white and green lights will flash during at the top of the clock will flash to signal the five daily times for prayer in Islam.

Greenwich has performed its job as international timekeeper admirably since 1884, so many people are going to be hard-pressed to think of a reason to change the Prime Meridian now. But at least one nation is starting to think that it's time for a change.

HASSAN BATEL/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:MIDDLE EAST, ISLAM
 

NYGDAN

11:16 PM ET

August 11, 2010

UCT not GMT

Another interesting take on this: http://bit.ly/dcta6J

As noted in that article, no one is on GMT anyway, we're all on Universal Coordinated Time. And obviously, building a big gaudy clock (that apparently will overshadow the Kaaba) has noting to do with being 'time zone zero'.

Maybe instead of giant hotels, they should be building more water purification plants and figuring out what to do with the hyper-saline waste product besides burying it. You know, something /positive/ for their people and future??

 

ARHMEDNO

12:52 AM ET

August 13, 2010

^ Uh, do you know that they

^ Uh, do you know that they are doing that? If you've ever been to SA, you'd know that one of most major issues on peoples' mind. See the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Saudi_Arabia.

The government is doing quite a bit more than the US on this issue, which kind of discouraging. In Maryland, there always issues of water pollution everywhere!

 

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