The US should switch to metric

[Harovan]

Days and years are the true feeled time units. There are not many things I do per second (not even breathe), but a lot I do daily and yearly. Unfortunately, both are variables due to rotation anomalies and orbit disturbances, and a matter of definition anyway. Both are the time for a rotation/revolution, but relative to what? Every possible coordinate system is moving as well, like other stars (own movement), the center of the galaxy (moving within and with the Local group), the astronomic poles (precession) etc. etc.

So days and years are not very convenient to serve as basic time unit. Since they aren't (not even nearly) decimal multiples of the SI unit second, it would be a mess to work with kiloseconds and megaseconds.

It would be acceptable, to break the mean astronomical day or the tropical year in decimals, like the day = 10 or 20 new hours per 100 new minutes and 100 new seconds each. But due to the variability of their length, any re-definition of the second would drift away after a time and this way be useless.

So I think we have to live with the hexagesimal/duodecimal system for a while more.

[Dauphin]

Are Stardates decimal by any chance?

Dare I ask a Trekkie how that is supposed to work.

[Harovan]

There is a kind of date (Julian Day, JD), which is indeed expressed in a number and decimals of day. The 5th decimal is about a second. It is widely used among Astronoms, because it makes it easy to calculate with dates (and especially differences of them, like how many days between Apr 29, 1986 and Feb 13, 1997?). It is used to compute orbits and such, too, and the epochs of ephemerids are usually given in round JD's.

[Rogan Josh]

We should really be counting in base 12, since 12 is divisible by 1 (obviously!), 2, 3, 4 and 6. Must better than 10's puny 1, 2 and 5. It would make mental arithmetic much easier.

We even have words for them. We could go from 'twelve' to 'oneteen', 'twoteen' etc and have 'twenty-eleven' and so on. 'Eleventy-four' sounds cool

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
We should really be counting in base 12, since 12 is divisible by 1 (obviously!), 2, 3, 4 and 6. Must better than 10's puny 1, 2 and 5. It would make mental arithmetic much easier.

Base-60 is even better. It's divisible by 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20, and 30. So there

[Az]

Ok, what would be the digits? rules:

1) must be easily presentable on calculators.
2) must not be A,B,C.

I don't think that base 12 would be much of a problem, IIRC, babylonians used base 6, albeit their math was much more primitive.

[Panag]

Originally posted by GP
Why haven't you Euros gotten time metricized. Hours and minutes are so archaic.

hi ,

next you gonna want them on sub days aswell , ...

now that would be fun

have a nice day

[TCO]

Originally posted by alva
Wouldn't mind if they did. You're forgetting about days/weeks etc. btw

Nah, I thought of them. The day has an intrinsic value as a unit. So does the year. So we are kinda stuck with that 365 day years with leapdays except on centuries yadayada. But the hours, minutes, weeks, and maybe months could get reworked.

I think one of the big problems is that the second is a defining unit for a lot of physical quantities and for the metric system itself. So it would be hard to change it even though it makes sense. I do think we should get rid of AM/PM times and have something with no chance for confusion.

[St Leo]

IIRC, the metric system came from the French enlightenment, and as such I come from the country which is most used to the metric system.

I never once encountered a non-metric unit in my eleven years in Latvia.

I think one of the big problems is that the second is a defining unit for a lot of physical quantities and for the metric system itself. So it would be hard to change it even though it makes sense. I do think we should get rid of AM/PM times and have something with no chance for confusion.

What's wrong with:
3:00 AM = 3:00
9:00 AM = 9:00
3:00 PM = 15:00
9:00 PM = 21:00
?
As long as you say "fifteen thirty-six" for 15:36 instead of that military craziness, it remains clear.

[TCO]

I haven't done the math, but something like a 10 hour day with 100minutes each of which has 100-seconds would be a nice system. We could use all the digits in a time. 9:78:66 would be a legitimate time. HAving 10 hours instead of 24 would eliminate this silly AM/PM thing. (You could try millitary time, but some people refuse to do that. Better to change it all.)

[TCO]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


It has already. The second is the SI unit for time. Bigger units are just retained for the sake of convenience.

There is no fundamental reason for the second to exist. It's just a part of the MKS system and people don't want to mess with it. Silly metric people clinging to an anachronism. I don't care if we pull this prop out and have to change everything else.

[TCO]

Originally posted by MikeH
A day is 86400 seconds, 1/10 of a day is 8640 seconds.

There are very good reasons for having the second as the scientific unit of time. It's just unfortunate that the earth doesn't rotate in a convenient number of seconds.

No. I don't think there is any fundamental reason for the second. It's just that the other pieces of the house of cards are linked to it. I'd feel better defining a scientific "day" as an earth rotation. (yeah, I know it's slowing down.) Than make a second 1/100 of a minute which is 1/100 of an hour of which we have ten. Just change all the Newtons and stuff if you need to.

[TCO]

Originally posted by St Leo
IIRC, the metric system came from the French enlightenment, and as such I come from the country which is most used to the metric system.

I never once encountered a non-metric unit in my eleven years in Latvia.

I think one of the big problems is that the second is a defining unit for a lot of physical quantities and for the metric system itself. So it would be hard to change it even though it makes sense. I do think we should get rid of AM/PM times and have something with no chance for confusion.

What's wrong with:
3:00 AM = 3:00
9:00 AM = 9:00
3:00 PM = 15:00
9:00 PM = 21:00
?
As long as you say "fifteen thirty-six" for 15:36 instead of that military craziness, it remains clear.

1. They won't do it. Better to change the whole hour system so they have no chance to backslide. I want 10 hours in the day.

2. The military silliness is just like you say. We say fifteen, thirty-six.

[Panag]

hi ,

just a Q , why change something that has been around for so long , ....

as for months and year , try the Jewish calender , .....


GP , what about sub days , ....

18 hours to a day

have a nice day

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GP
There is no fundamental reason for the second to exist. It's just a part of the MKS system and people don't want to mess with it. Silly metric people clinging to an anachronism. I don't care if we pull this prop out and have to change everything else.

Fundamental reason? What fundamental reason? These measurement units are all artificial constructions. Why use the metre or kilogram? We could have some other units instead.