The short hand tells you which hour it is. For example, when the clock shows the short hand on 3 and the long hand on 12, it is 3 o'clock. Reading the hours on a clock is like following a number ...

It's a powerful story, and for many years I thought this is what the Doomsday Clock meant: that its hands represented the time we have left before the end. However, that's not quite accurate.