Universal Epoch Time

[chrisname]

What happened on the 1st January 1970? Who cares? What about 2000? Again, who cares? None of these epochs make sense, they're all so arbitrary. Nothing of note happened on those days.

The most logical epoch is one that we have hitherto been unable to represent on most computers due to its size. But with the advent of 64-bit computers, which are fast superseding the older 32-bit processors, it's now possible to represent time with the most logical and least arbitrary epoch possible: the beginning of time itself.

Introducing Universal Epoch Time™.

With 64 bits, it is possible to store a number up to 2⁶⁴-1, which is exactly 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Interpreting this as a count of seconds, it is therefore possible to represent up to 584,526,042,639 years. The age of the universe is estimated to be about 13.7 billion years, so using unsigned 64-bit integers we can represent the current age of the universe, plus about 570 billion years, which is far longer than the human race (let alone universe) is expected to last.

Thus, unless humanity literally ascends to godhood, there will never be another Y2K or UNIX-time bug again. (And if we had ascended to godhood, we could probably fix the bug quite easily).

Conversions (in C for compatibility):

#include <limits.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <time.h>

typedef uint64_t uet_t;

enum {
    UET_TO_UNIX = 432000000946700000ULL
};

uet_t unix_to_uet(time_t unix_time)
{
    return (uet_t)unix_time + UET_TO_UNIX;
}

time_t uet_to_unix(uet_t uet)
{
    static const uet_t max = (uet_t)TIME_MAX;
    const uet_t adjusted = uet - UET_TO_UNIX;
    assert(adjusted <= max);
    return (time_t)adjusted;
}

[giblit]

How do you know that "time" started when the universe did?

[Cheraphy]

Time is the product of motion and forces. Before the expansion of the singularity, there was no motion and all forces were in absolute equilibrium. Therefor time did not exist.

[giblit]

So at what time did the big bang *happen*? :P

*edit had a missing word

[Cheraphy]

That implies that any question of time before the big bang isn't meaningless. The big bang happened at zero.
edit:
Do you know what the big bang actually was?

[Duthomhas]

I propose munroetime. http://xkcd.com/1190/
Clocks start somewhere around 11,000 years in the future. (Or the publication of the comic, whichever is more convenient.)

[chrisname]

giblit wrote:

How do you know that "time" started when the universe did

The universe is everything that exists.

So at what time did the big bang *happen*? :P

t=0, obviously.

[Disch]

chrisname wrote:

The universe is everything that exists.

That's not necessarily true. It's just everything we can observe.



That said... time is relative to the party experiencing it. The faster you travel, the less "time" you get. IE, moving at the speed of light for 100 Earth years will seem like 100 years to someone on Earth, but will seem instantaneous to whatever is moving at that speed.

Therefore we have to establish a point of reference... which, usually, is done in how time is experienced on Earth (since we live on Earth). Therefore, the Epoch being the creation of the Earth makes more sense than the creation of the universe.


However... pinpointing the exact time (to the second) of the creation of the Earth is currently impossible. The best we can do is approximate. Besides that, there likely wasn't a single point in time where it just happened (ie one second there was no Earth, then the next second there was) -- it's more likely that it happened gradually over an extended period of time.

All of this means that picking an epoch around that time would be just as arbitrary as any other chosen epoch.



So really... no cosmic epoch makes sense to me. What would make more sense is basing the epoch on the same thing we base our calendars on. IE: it should be 12:01 of Jan 1st, 1 AD.

[LB]

Maybe someday when I'm rich I'll spend oodles of money and personally oversee the construction and maintenance of an operating system that is not a product of the past. For now though, hobbyist projects don't include "make an operating system" for me.

@chrisname: if you consider the fact that our program should not care about the type or value of a date, you're basically complaining about an implementation detail. But I do share your complaint.

[Ceset]

Interesting.

God is an unknown *thing*.

It changes at every religion. So what is it, if it exist. Is it the strongest being. If it is, what is strength.

Talking about unknown things are theoritical and philosophic issues.

About time. Time and place exists where *matter* exists. But these didnt just *appeared*.

It is hard to explain. I dont know an english word to explain it.

t=0 would be simple. Too simple.

I used asterisks at all uncertain knowledges.

[NoXzema]

The question to ask is what the current time is.

[LB]

Oh, Disch's post wasn't there when I posted. How did this suddenly change to religion again? Is that the only thing people can talk about?

[Ceset]

We think time is like a river. But it is *not*. Our brains store data according to chronologic happening.

Therefore we think time is linear, but it is *not*. It is unknown.

[LB]

Good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9sbdrPVfOQ

We're not yet that big into space travel, so even though time doesn't pass at the same rate everywhere, we only need to worry about it in specialized cases like satellites.

[Ceset]

Also we dont know time is relative according to what.

A day for earth. Sun maybe. What about universe itself.

All these questions are mindfucking but awwsome.

[LB]

Yes, I'm still very fuzzy on the difference between space and the matter and energy that travels through it. Specifically I don't understand how the speed of light can't be passed if you get to choose any reference point you want.

[Ceset]

Well, he said godhood. So i just questioned what god is, if it exist.

[LB]

Why are you jumping between topics so sporadically?

[Ceset]

Because i am burning to talk, i cant control myself.

[Ispil]

LB, think of it this way- the speed of light, as you know, is constant. Therefore, the faster you begin to travel, the more distorted the light around you becomes and the slower time passes for you relative to the outside- in a sense, time stops before you go faster than light, because time is determined by light... This is why time dilation occurs as a result of gravity- light can only travel in a straight path. Hence, gravity is the bending of space itself as a way of redefining a "straight" path. However, since light cannot change speed no matter how much you alter the space it travels through, time itself must slow down so that light traveling in a curved and straight path over equal geodesic distance are the same.