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Thread: Metric Time

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Default Metric Time

    For most weights and measures there are both Imperial and Metric equivalents, pounds and kilos, litres and gallons, but I can't think of an equivalent for time itself.

    Seconds may get divided into milliseconds and nanoseconds as orders of ten, but above that we use minutes and hours in imperial multiples of sixty.

    So how would you go about metricising time?

    What level would you start at - the length of time the earth rotates on it's axis, or the length of time the earth rotates around the sun? Is there an arbitrary alternative you could use?

    If we did, should we keep the same distinct names or should we find different ones? Would a second be changed to have a new length or should we stop using seconds and rename units of time.

    How many things would have to change if we did this. and what kind of confusion would this cause?
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  2. #2
    Stegodon kk fusion's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    Seconds may get divided into milliseconds and nanoseconds as orders of ten, but above that we use minutes and hours in imperial multiples of sixty.
    So what's stopping us from saying "3.6 kiloseconds"?

  3. #3
    Sophmoric Existentialist
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    The clock we used is based on the circle - the Earth's orbit around the Sun - and we decided long ago that a circle is 360 degrees. And, yes, I know the orbit is not perfectly circular.

    We could change to "a circle is 1,000 degrees" and work from there. Think of the work for guys writing Geometry texts!!!!! Wow. Euclid would be spinning in his grave. Circularly.
    Sophmoric Existentialist

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    Confused Box Guy fachverwirrt's avatar
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    I don't think you can get away with the fact that the year and the day are fundamental measures. And no matter how hard you try, you will never have 10x days per year.

    However, you could divide the year into ten months: five 37 day months and five 36 day months with leap days as appropriate.

    And the day could certainly be divided by various tens: ten hours a day with a hundred minutes with a hundred seconds. I don't see any barriers to that.

  5. #5
    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by fachverwirrt View post
    And the day could certainly be divided by various tens: ten hours a day with a hundred minutes with a hundred seconds. I don't see any barriers to that.
    They tried this in Revolutionary-era France. Apparently it didn't stick: Decimal time.
    Last edited by Orual; 07 Sep 2010 at 02:37 PM.

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    Quote Originally posted by Orual View post
    They tried this in Revolutionary-era France. Apparently it didn't stick: Decimal time.
    Nor the decimal calendar, despite having a day named "eggplant".

    Anyway, using years with metric prefixes is pretty common in archaeology and paleontology. The unit is a, so you see figures like "Sumerian civilization began approximately 10 a" or "The dinosaurs died around 65 Ma." Which actually is sort of funny since the year is not a metric unit -- their base unit of time is the second.

  7. #7
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    The movie Metropolis features 10 hour clocks. Pretty cool, and in the movie, pretty creepy.

    The workers essentially work the dial round--ten hours on, ten hours off.
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    Miss Entropy Angua's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by kk fusion View post
    So what's stopping us from saying "3.6 kiloseconds"?
    Nothing. We do it all the time in X-ray astronomy.

  9. #9
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    "I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."

    -Jim Rockford

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