Why Do Clocks Have A Nine-Minute Snooze Function?

15 May 2018, 16:41 | Updated: 4 June 2018, 11:03

Mystery Hour Question

Name: Stuart, Hyde Park

Question: Why do digital analogue clocks have a nine minute snooze function on them?

Qualifications: Watched a TV programme that informed him

Answer: Back in the day when analogue clocks had mechanical cogs on them, there was a limit to the size of the cogs that you could put in there which would still be able to mesh with the other cogs.

The options for manufacturers were just over nine minutes and just over ten minutes, you’d have to put a bigger case for larger cogs to get it up to ten minutes.

In the 1950s, when alarm clocks came into existence, they decided not to go over ten so they stuck with nine.