Isn't it Time for Metric Time?

xenocytekron writes: "Sure, our time system is ok, but does it make sense? Is it easy? Think about it: 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 25 hours to a day, all the way to 365 days to a year. Currently, all the world uses the Metric System except for the US. But what about Time? The solution is Metric Time, that is, a time system which uses Base-10 and Metric Standards. So what do you think: Is it Time, for Metric Time?"

Comments

25 Hours in a day?

[JeanBaptiste]

When did this happen? I have only been getting 24 and I sure could use an extra hour to sleep in.

25 Hours?

[Jester998]

"60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 25 hours to a day"

Cool... Where do you live? I can use an extra hour of coding time every day... ;)

Re:25 Hours?

[suwain_2]

While there's a 99.9% chance that the "25 hours" figure was a typo, it reminded me of an interesting factoid I've seen before...

The human body's "biorhythms" are apparently based on a 25-hour cycle. Now that I'm actually looking for it, I can't find any links to the research, but perhaps someone more "in the know" can provide this information, as I'm positive that I didn't imagine this fact. There've been some really interesting studies done on this and sleep, I wish I could find the link. (I suppose chances are slim that anyone else would happen to have bookmarked a URL for something about 25 hour biorhythms and sleep?) Can anyone help me out here?

Re:25 Hours?

[thales]

"Also, think of all the s/w that would have to be rewritten.... flight control systems, databases, operating systems, the list is endless! Yikes!"
Yikes?... Try Who Hoo!!!
Think of all the $$$$ that PHBs were shovelling at Geeks for software and consulting 3 or 4 years ago when they were scared to death of Y2k!! We could do it all over again. This is a GOLDMINE !

Re:25 Hours?

[LinuxHam]

Exactly what I thought of, too. I think it was a NASA study done years ago to figure out how to best structure work schedules for long stays in space.

I remember this particular study involved moving people into a house a la Big Brother, but actually having that house built completely within a set, kindof like the Truman Show, but more like just limited to controlling the light coming in through the windows to give the residents a sense of sunrise, daylight, sunset and nighttime. They may have even cycled the light every, what, 45 minutes(?) to simulate orbiting the earth.

I don't remember anything about specially controlled clocks that run a little slower to add the extra hour a day. If there are 3,600 seconds in an hour and 86,400 seconds in a day, then each move of the second hand on each clock actually needs to take 1 + 3600/86400 or 1.041666 seconds.. barely noticeable. Don't worry, you're not nuts. I most definitely remember the 25 hours too, not 27 like another poster mentioned, but I think we're remembering a 20 year old study, too.

Re:25 Hours?

[LinuxHam]

I should have done this first, but Google for "25 hour day".. i think the quotes are significant to the search. A front page hit is this article from Harvard. The next hit says the brain's day is 24 hours, 11 minutes long, not the 25 hours earlier studies concluded.

You can read the rest of the Google hits.

Relevant Simpsons quote...

[I Want GNU!]

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car
gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!" --Abe Simpson (Homer's dad)

Re:Relevant Simpsons quote...

[PowerBook2k]

I bet I've got a better one!

"Not only are the trains now running on time, they're running on metric time! Remember this moment, people: 80 past 2 on April 47th!" --Principal Skinner
(Episode "They Saved Lisa's Brain")
[the one where Lisa joins Mensa]

Re:Relevant Simpsons quote...

[Mad Marlin]

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!" --Abe Simpson (Homer's dad)

Actually, one of the cool things about old English liquid measure (and dry measure too, but it took me long enough to exosomatically remember the liquid measures) is that it is base-2 instead of base-10. Unfortunately, we forgot most of the units. For example, I can't recall what goes between ounces and gills, and I can't seem find it on the internet.

2 fluid ounces = 1 ??? = 2^1 fl.oz.
2 ???s = 1 gill = 2^2 fl.oz.
2 gills = 1 chopin (cup) = 2^3 fl.oz.
2 chopins (cups) = 1 pint = 2^4 fl.oz.
2 pints = 1 quart = 2^5 fl.oz.
2 quarts = 1 pottle = 2^6 fl.oz.
2 pottles = 1 gallon = 2^7 fl.oz.
2 gallons = 1 peck = 2^8 fl.oz.
2 pecks = 1 demibushel = 2^9 fl.oz.
2 demibushels = 1 bushel or firken = 2^10 fl.oz.
2 firkens = 1 kinderkin = 2^11 fl.oz.
2 kinderkins = 1 barrel = 2^12 fl.oz.
2 barrels = 1 hogshead = 2^13 fl.oz.
2 hogsheads = 1 pipe = 2^14 fl.oz.
2 pipes = 1 tun = 2^15 fl.oz.

The gas tank on my Dad's old Chevy Suburban holds a barrel and a firken. A full tank of gas costs about $60.

Maybe...

[adam613]

...if we could convince the article's web server that there were 25 hours a day, it would have an extra hour of CPU time and it wouldn't get slashdotted until AFTER some responses were posted.

Funny topic,

[Paraplegic Vigilante]

but it raises an interesting question, one that's been on my mind a lot lately.

When is the US going to officially switch to the SI unit system. I know it's taught in public schools, typically in science classes, but it isn't used in public places. If so many European countries can switch currencies without huge problems (so far), surely we can switch from our archaic units system! I don't understand why so many people are so vehemently against making the switch. Is it that hard to (re)learn?

Re:Funny topic,

[inicom]

The story I've always been told is that when President Carter tried to switch the US to the metric system, the aerospace companies stepped in and told him a couple things:

1) cost plus on government contracts is going to be a much bigger PLUS

2) it'll hurt US manufacturing by making it easier for those foreigners to sell their products here (without conversion to US measurements)

Re:Funny topic,

[some guy I know]

Actually, IIRC (and I was alive then),
Carter was in the process of converting the country to Metric.
(I particularly remember gas pumps that displayed both liters and gallons.)
Then he lost the 1980 election to Reagan.
Reagan stopped the conversion in its tracks, saying something like:
"We have become world leaders in Science without the 'benefit' of the Metric system"
(ignoring the fact that most scientific establishments use the Metric system).

Some of the effects of this aborted attempt are felt to this day.
For example, many carbonated beverages are now sold by the liter.

Re:Funny topic,

[dkoyanagi]

One of the strange side effects that going metric had in Canada is that most Canadians now think of distances in terms of how long it takes to get there, rather than the actual distance in km. The switch happened around 1977. Almost overnight all distance and speed limit signs went from miles to kilometers. Suddenly the sign that used to say:

Moose Jaw 200 miles

now read

Moose Jaw 320 km

Instead of trying to convert kilometers back to miles, most people simply divided the distance by the speed limit (which stayed the same after conversion to metric) to get the approximate time to their destination. This became very simple because most highway speed limits are now 100 km/h. So 3.2 hours at 60 MPH is roughly 180+ miles. After a while most people stopped doing the second part of the conversion and simply started thinking of distances in terms of time. I'm sure most people who've visited Canada have had this strange conversation:

Non-Canadian: Excuse me, how far is it to the nearest gas station?
Canadian: About ten minutes.

and the other measurements?

[ffsnjb]

Do we suddenly change the measurement units for navigation also? 60:60:24 exists for a reason, and directly translates to measurements in navigation (latitude and longitude.) Sounds like a blast.

Re:and the other measurements?

[RedWizzard]

Is there another number system besides base 6 that allows you to easily convert the earth's rotation of 15 degrees an hour into human readable time?

That's circular reasoning. You're arguing that "hour" is a good measure of time based on rotation per hour. Since there is nothing magical about 15 degrees we could easily define a "metric hour" to be a tenth of a day and say the earth's rotation is 36 degrees per "metric hour".

Re:Gone already?!?

[WIAKywbfatw]

The link appears to be slashdotted.. 2 minutes after the story was posted.

Don't you mean 0.12 kiloseconds?

Actually, we should at least standardize...

[RobinH]

When I learned "metric" time in school, the idea was there was a set order that everything appeared in: biggest to smallest. Therefore, the time now is 2002 07 04 23:04. That still makes a lot of sense to me, compared with 7/4/02. It always confuses me - which is the month, and which is the day? Just to be sure, I've actually started spelling out the month like this: 4 JUL 2002. That way, there's no doubt.

Re:Divisibility

[cornice]

I agree. The metric system is great being base 10 and all but sometimes I wish we had evolved with 12 fingers just for this reason.

Re:Metric natural time

[ImaLamer]

Exactly. Considering the times are based on natural events it should stay that way.

"Well... it's been only one day but my watch says 1.2314. I'm glad we switched to this new version of time!"

Don't go screwing with a good thing. The time system we have now is somewhat an average of what ancient astronomy has come up with... it's worked pretty good so far.

So what is a third of an hour then??

[cwills]

One of the interesting properites about using the 60, 60, 24 is the number of divisors..

To wit..

60 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, and 5 (and multiples of those).

24 can be evenly divided by 2 and 3 (and multiples of those).

It is also one of the reasons why 12 inches is still popular ( 12 can be divided by 2, and 3) so that you can have 1/2 and 1/3 (or multiples of those) of a foot without getting into fractional inches.

However decimal (metric) runs into problems. You only get 2 and 5 as the multiples without getting into "weird" decimals. Exactly how many centimeters is 1/3 of a meter? how many millimeters?

Damn Nerds!

[ImaLamer]

Why do nerds have to screw up everything for everyone else?

I just don't get it. VCR programming now this.

Re:40 rods to the hogshead

[Requiem]

But still more than a Ford Explorer.

The funny thing is....

[os2fan]

That the 24 hour day is an Egyptian invention, based on a decimaldivision of the "day" + morning + twilight + the rising of 12 of their 36 signs. The 36 signs relate to their 10 day week.

The division into 60 is a Sumerian system, but their native system is to divide the day into powers of 60.

The uniform hours divided by base 60 is a Greek invention. The Romans divided the hour into 12 uncia. [The romans used weight-fractions: the unit = 1 libra: therefore a scruple of time is 12 1/2 seconds = 1/288 hour]

The metric system was meant to replace the angle and the length with a decimally divided quadrant: so it would be appropriate to divide the quarter day likewise. It makes some sense to do it like this.

Of course, you can consistantly divide the circle, day, and circumference into any system. Eg I use a circle divided into powers of 120, a nautical system of a marinal (9120 ft) of 120 segments (76 ft). This is the 'minute' and 'second' of the base 120 system. The day is divided into 12 hours of 120 min of 120 seconds

You can use other divisions as well, eg a decimally divided circle.

One thing I keep in mind is the clock division. In our clock, the hours use the major markings, which serve as multiples of the minute. So you could, in something like base 14, use a day divided into 16 hours of 56 minutes a peice. The clock is divided into hour-octants, each of sevenths.

Base 10 vs. Base 12

[Rui del-Negro]

We use base 10 because we were born with 10 fingers. But that doesn't make it the "best" numeric base. In fact, base 12 has a lot of advantages over base 10. 10 can only be divided by 5 and 2. 12 can be divided by 6, 4, 3 and 2.

Time is based on bases 24 and 60, which are multiples of 12. It's easy to count exacly half a day (12 hours), one third of a day (8 hours) and one quarter of a day (6 hours). The happen to correspond (roughly) to day / night, awake / asleep and morning / day / afternoon / night, which are "important" periods from a biological & natural point of view. Same goes for years (if a year had 10 months, each season would be 2.5 months long, and seasons are not quite as "artificial" as they may seem).

Here are a couple of pages about base 12:

DGSB

StudyWorks

Of course, changing everything from base 10 to base 12 would be more trouble than it's worth, but there's no reason to "downgrade" the way we count time just to comply with a "rule" that exists only because some people count by their fingers. I suppose men could learn to use base 11 with a bit of training... :-]

The main problem with the way we keep time is converting quickly (mentally) between seconds, minutes and hours. But the solution is pretty simple: always work in seconds (the SI unit).

P.S. - In fact, it's possible to count up to 32 using just one hand (think binary), but I've never met anyone who does it intuitively.

RMN
~~~

iso-8601

[coyote-san]

IIRC, ISO-8601 is the spec for dates and times. It's 2002-07-04, or 2002W264 (if you prefer week numbers and days-of-week, plus variants for Julian days (not Julian Dates, which are entirely different), etc.

Most people who have tried it quickly like it. It's also trivial to sort dates without special logic.

Unfortunately, I think Windows apps may still not really support it. I remember trying to switch to it during Y2K, and a lot of programs barfed on this format (giving me an oh-so-useful blank field) even while working on silly formats like d/y/m.

365 days to a year

[gafferted]

The poster complains: 365 days to a year

I think that perhaps, he underestimates the difficulty involved in slowing the planet down to 100 revolutions per orbit.

Andrew

France tried it

[james_orr]

After the revolution.

The new "de-christianised" calendar started in 1793 and was retroactive to 1792. The year started on September 22nd and consisted of 12 months of 30 days apiece. Each month was divided into decades of 10 days.

The end of the year had 5 days (6 on leap years) designated by roman numerals.

This was France's official calendar until 1806.

I don't think they changed the number of hours in the day though.

Re:Russia also tried it

[anticypher]

After the revolution, from 1923 to 1931, the russians used a 5 day week, with 6 weeks in each month, and 12 months in each year. The extra 5 days were specially named holidays related to revolutionary dates. Each worker got 1 day in 30 off, staggered throughout the community so no more than 1/30th of the workers were off each day. (Not everybody in russia used the calendar. The navy stuck to the gregorian calendar because all their navigation books were in that format, tribal regions stayed with their historic versions, others just ignored the decree)

It was a complete disaster, the idea was to get an extra boost from worker productivity by not allowing weekends or other time off. It had the opposite effect, workers were exhausted after 29 days of continuous work, and productivity fell dramatically.

In 1931, they switched to a 6 day week, with 5 week months, and one day each week was a rest day for everyone. Productivity jumped 50% or more in the first few months of using the new calendar.

This should be a lesson to managers who try to pull too much work out of their employees. People need time off on a regular basis to recover from the effects of working 8+ hours per day for 5 or 6 days. After spending too much time working, the body and mind can't maintain the output.

the AC
The french revolutionary calendar started with year 1, but they made it retroactive a year and called that year 0. Programmers!