Could time be measured metrically

Could time be measured metrically

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Erudite geezer

Original Poster:

576 posts

120 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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Theoretically, could time as we perceive it be measured metrically as opposed to the arbitrary methods currently assigned?

Whilst understanding that the earth spins on it's axis every 24 hours and that it takes the earth 365.25 days to orbit the sun, could this be incorporated into a metric measure?

It would of course be incredibly difficult to not think in the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years we are accustomed to, but is it technically possible?

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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Time is already measured metrically.

SI Second (atomic second) - The interval of time taken to complete 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the cesium 133 atom exposed to a suitable excitation

TheEnd

15,370 posts

187 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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I think he means decimal.

100 "seconds" in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day.

Each "new" hour would be 72 "old" minutes long for example.


TheEnd

15,370 posts

187 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
quotequote all
oops!

there's 24 hours in a day, not 12!
Each decimal hour would be 144 minutes long if it is in tenths.

Erudite geezer

Original Poster:

576 posts

120 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
quotequote all
Max_Torque said:
Time is already measured metrically.

SI Second (atomic second) - The interval of time taken to complete 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the cesium 133 atom exposed to a suitable excitation
True.

But the next level up after seconds is minutes and there are 60 seconds to a minute, which is not metric.

Next level up after minutes is hours and there are 60 minutes to an hour, which is not metric.

grumbledoak

31,499 posts

232 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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The Ancient Babylonians were cleverer than the French. It would be better to switch everything else to twelves and sixties. Except years, which are pretty clearly thirteen months of four weeks of seven days plus a couple of days drunk 'carnival'.

AER

1,142 posts

269 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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Erudite geezer said:
True.

But the next level up after seconds is minutes and there are 60 seconds to a minute, which is not metric.

Next level up after minutes is hours and there are 60 minutes to an hour, which is not metric.
Well, if you have milliseconds and microseconds, why not measure your spare time in kiloseconds. That "just ten minutes" becomes 0.6ks and the 24h news cycle is now 86.4ks

Your girlfriend gets grumpy every 2.4Ms and it's about 31.5Ms between birthdays.

Three-score-years-and-ten becomes 2.2Gs

Poetic it is not!


Edited by AER on Saturday 6th September 13:27

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 6th September 2014
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I quite like that^^^ Andy, we should lobby for it's introduction. After all the current Calendar only took around 1600 years to get sorted! ;-)

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Sunday 7th September 2014
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Metric just meased 'measure'.

You can't change orbital periods but you can divide anything by 10, yes.

I expect the EU will get on to it soon, when they have finished their pontifications on vacuum cleaners.

MartG

20,619 posts

203 months

Sunday 7th September 2014
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It would be very difficult indeed to move to a 'decimal' time system which split the day up by dividing by 10 - imagine having to redefine every scientific constant, then rewrite every textbook, rewrite every computer programme, etc. !

TooLateForAName

4,725 posts

183 months

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
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The French (who else?) already tried it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

tapkaJohnD

1,930 posts

203 months

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
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grumbledoak said:
The Ancient Babylonians were cleverer than the French. It would be better to switch everything else to twelves and sixties. Except years, which are pretty clearly thirteen months of four weeks of seven days plus a couple of days drunk 'carnival'.
It would be it we started to count in duodecimal, base12.
Then we would go 1,2,3,.....9,A,B,10 Use any symbol you like for A and B, as long as everyone else does.
And the decimal number 60 would be 50 in base12.
Then it would be as simple to divide by 10 in decimal, as to divide by 10 in duodecimal.

OR, use sexagesimal, when 10 = 60 to base10, and you need another fifty new symbols for the numbers between 9 and 10. Do you think it's as simple, or 'better' now, grumbledoak?
JOhn

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
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Someone was telling me yesterday that the Carthaginians used Base 60, which is where the 60 comes from. Or maybe it was the Babylonians. But whatever, they were cleverer than the French who can only count on their fingers...

VernalEquinox

142 posts

210 months

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
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In the early 2000s Swatch tried 'internet time'. They day was divided into 1000 'beats', the idea being that having to work out all the timezone nonsense to meet online, or for an event or announcement, was an enormous faff and it could just happen at, for example, 749. Not only were they dividing the 24 hour day into 1000 arbitrary units, they were getting rid of the whole concept of timezones and 12 being lunch, 6 being dinner, cos it would depend where you lived.

Unsurprisingly there was a physical watch available to go with your little html gadget, the Swatch Webmaster.

I bought one. It didn't catch on.

annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Wednesday 24th September 2014
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MartG said:
It would be very difficult indeed to move to a 'decimal' time system which split the day up by dividing by 10 - imagine having to redefine every scientific constant, then rewrite every textbook, rewrite every computer programme, etc. !
I don't know, many businesses employing hourly paid staff would probably love it.

thegreenhell

15,103 posts

218 months

Wednesday 24th September 2014
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tapkaJohnD said:
grumbledoak said:
The Ancient Babylonians were cleverer than the French. It would be better to switch everything else to twelves and sixties. Except years, which are pretty clearly thirteen months of four weeks of seven days plus a couple of days drunk 'carnival'.
It would be it we started to count in duodecimal, base12.
Then we would go 1,2,3,.....9,A,B,10 Use any symbol you like for A and B, as long as everyone else does.
And the decimal number 60 would be 50 in base12.
Then it would be as simple to divide by 10 in decimal, as to divide by 10 in duodecimal.

OR, use sexagesimal, when 10 = 60 to base10, and you need another fifty new symbols for the numbers between 9 and 10. Do you think it's as simple, or 'better' now, grumbledoak?
JOhn
I read somewhere that 12 and 60 came about originally because they are so easy to subdivide into equal parts.

12 can be divided into 2, 3, 4, or 6 whole-number parts.
60 can be divided into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 whole-number parts.

For making calculations without electronic calculators this has some big advantages over the decimal system. If humans had six fingers on each hand then we'd almost certainly be using the duodecimal system for everything.

tapkaJohnD

1,930 posts

203 months

Thursday 25th September 2014
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thegreenhell said:
If humans had six fingers on each hand then we'd almost certainly be using the duodecimal system for everything.
You're quite right.
But we don't, so why not use what comes naturally?

And anyway, "60 can be divided into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 whole-number parts"
But 3/60th is 1/20th, half a tenth, 6/60ths is a tenth, 12/60ths is a fifth, 15/60th is a quarter, 20/60th a third and 30/60ths a half. What's so clever about that?

JOhn

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Friday 26th September 2014
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Well all I know is that when we used 12 we had an Empire, and when we changed to 10 it all turned to crap nuts

bsdnazz

762 posts

252 months

Monday 29th September 2014
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It's always going to be a bit messy if we base time on the earth's rotation (it's getting slower so days are getting longer hence the leap second) and the year is not an exact multiple of a day (hence the leap year).

After than we can use any units we like. I think the 24/60/60 hh/mm/ss and 7 day week is too entrenched to change. Ditto for months and years/leap years.

foreright

1,034 posts

241 months

Thursday 9th October 2014
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My understanding is that 12 is useful because it's possible to count to 12 on the fingers of one hand by using your thumb to point at each of the 3 sections of the 4 other fingers. Of course, in Norfolk, a lot of people can count to 15 wink