New units of time
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We replaced the imperial system with the Metric system because the imperial system is obsolete and the Metric system is consistent and sensible.
Can we do the same for time?
There are
60 seconds in a minute
60 minutes in an hour
24 hours in a day
7 days in a week[1]
4 weeks in a month
12 months in a year[2]
Problems:
[1]This is an odd number. Odd numbers cannot be halved to produce integers
[2]This is bigger than 4. Why go from 60 down to 4 and then back to 12? That seems inconsistent.
There would only be two rules:
1. The amount of time in a second must stay constant
2. The amount of seconds in a day (8640) and the amount of seconds in a year (8640 * 365.25) must stay constant
Due to rules 1 and 2, we'd have to make new units. But there lies an issue in this: 8640 is a horrible number to work with. If it was 10,000 or even 8,000 or 9,000 it would be much easier. 8640 is awkward.
Would anyone be willing to help me to come up with a new system of time?
Can we do the same for time?
There are
60 seconds in a minute
60 minutes in an hour
24 hours in a day
7 days in a week[1]
4 weeks in a month
12 months in a year[2]
Problems:
[1]This is an odd number. Odd numbers cannot be halved to produce integers
[2]This is bigger than 4. Why go from 60 down to 4 and then back to 12? That seems inconsistent.
There would only be two rules:
1. The amount of time in a second must stay constant
2. The amount of seconds in a day (8640) and the amount of seconds in a year (8640 * 365.25) must stay constant
Due to rules 1 and 2, we'd have to make new units. But there lies an issue in this: 8640 is a horrible number to work with. If it was 10,000 or even 8,000 or 9,000 it would be much easier. 8640 is awkward.
Would anyone be willing to help me to come up with a new system of time?
Nice arithmetic, there. There are 86400 in a solar day.
In any case, rules 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive because the Earth's rotation is slowing down. That's why we have leap seconds.
Yes, but it's also a prime, so it's instantly awesome.
Because the Moon takes approximately four weeks to orbit around the Earth. "Month" and "moon" are cognates, in English.
What's always bugged me was the utterly retarded month system in the Julian calendar. Older cultures had 13 [28 day months] and one extra day at the end of the year. That would make date computations so much simpler.
In any case, rules 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive because the Earth's rotation is slowing down. That's why we have leap seconds.
| [1]This is an odd number. Odd numbers cannot be halved to produce integers |
| [2]This is bigger than 4. Why go from 60 down to 4 and then back to 12? |
What's always bugged me was the utterly retarded month system in the Julian calendar. Older cultures had 13 [28 day months] and one extra day at the end of the year. That would make date computations so much simpler.
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| Would anyone be willing to help me to come up with a new system of time? |
BTW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time
| helios wrote: |
|---|
| Nice arithmetic, there. There are 86400 in a solar day. |
Ok. I made a mistake.
| In any case, rules 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive. |
Granted, but rule 1 still stands.
| the Earth's rotation is slowing down |
Well, rule 2 was intended to stop people changing the amount of seconds in a day.
| Yes, but it's also a prime, so it's instantly awesome. |
No. Even numbers are better than odd numbers
| Because the Moon takes approximately four weeks to orbit around the Earth. |
The problem is the "approximately". Taking this into account, can we not design a more accurate and more consistent calendar?
| What's always bugged me was the utterly retarded month system in the Julian calendar |
Not to mention that the names make no sense. Stupid Romans. Not content with putting their silly viaducts everywhere, rather than put July and August after December so that September, October, November and December were in the correct places they put them before September so now, the seventh month is the ninth month.
| . Older cultures had 13 [28 day months] and one extra day at the end of the year. That would make date computations so much simpler. |
That sounds much better. Are there any negative implications of this (other than inertia)?
@Bazzy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time#Problems
Can we do better?
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| Even numbers are better than odd numbers |
| The problem is the "approximately". Taking this into account, can we not design a more accurate and more consistent calendar? |
| Not to mention that the names make no sense. |
Any date system that you can come up with can be either practical (easy to learn, remember, and use without the aid of a machine or external storage) or based on astronomical pseudo-constants, but not both, and it's going to be completely arbitrary either way. So I think the simpler, the better. 13 month years are almost perfectly elegant except for that one day at the end of the year (which some years will be two), but due to a) resistance to change and b) Western triskaidekaphobia, it's never going to get implemented.
| Sure, sure they are |
Well, why not? Even numbers (except for 2) make integers when you halve them.
| And binary is more low level than hexadecimal. :-) |
I never said nor implied that it was.
| Back in the day, they did make sense. For hundreds of years, New Year was on March 1st. You can thank Pope Gregory XIII for their current names. |
I'm pretty sure the reason September is the ninth month rather than the seventh is because of Julius Augustus Caesar (hence July and August). Or did Gregory XIII name them for him? I assumed Caesar had named them for himself.
Ah. Never mind. It wasn't the pope who named them, and New Year has been on January 1st for much longer than I thought.
While July and August *are* in honor of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, September has been in its current position long before he was born (that is, it never came immediately after the month now know as May). September was once the 7th month, but that was when the calendar started on March 1st. The day some Roman flipped out and went "from now on the year begins two months earlier" they didn't rename the months, so September, October, November, and December are the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, but only according to that ancient calendar.
While July and August *are* in honor of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, September has been in its current position long before he was born (that is, it never came immediately after the month now know as May). September was once the 7th month, but that was when the calendar started on March 1st. The day some Roman flipped out and went "from now on the year begins two months earlier" they didn't rename the months, so September, October, November, and December are the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, but only according to that ancient calendar.
That's all fine, except this:
That's because May is the fifth month and June is the sixth.
| helios wrote: |
|---|
| [September] never came immediately after the month now know as May |
That's because May is the fifth month and June is the sixth.
We could use Planck time units instead of seconds, it would be cool: "I'll be there in 5.565·1045 tp!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_time
I am not sure why we need to keep seconds the same. I think we should definitely change the month system to follow the moon with 13 months in a year. That pretty much forces us to have about 28 days per month.
We can get pretty decimal from there on in though.
1 day = 10 hours.
1 hour = 10 decamins (2.4 old hours each)
1 decamin = 10 minutes (0.24 old hours = 14.4 old minutes)
1 minute = 10 decasecs (0.024 old hr = 1.44 old minutes = 86.4 old seconds)
1 decasec = 10 seconds (0.0024 old hr = 0.144 old min = 8.64 old sec)
1 second = etc... (0.0024 old hr = 0.0144 old min = .864 old sec)
100 seconds = 1 minute
100 minutes = 1 hour
10 hours = 1 day
28 days per month
13 months per year.
(I didn't check the math too rigorously)
We can get pretty decimal from there on in though.
1 day = 10 hours.
1 hour = 10 decamins (2.4 old hours each)
1 decamin = 10 minutes (0.24 old hours = 14.4 old minutes)
1 minute = 10 decasecs (0.024 old hr = 1.44 old minutes = 86.4 old seconds)
1 decasec = 10 seconds (0.0024 old hr = 0.144 old min = 8.64 old sec)
1 second = etc... (0.0024 old hr = 0.0144 old min = .864 old sec)
100 seconds = 1 minute
100 minutes = 1 hour
10 hours = 1 day
28 days per month
13 months per year.
(I didn't check the math too rigorously)
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Now we need to rearrange the months and the days of the week into alphabetical order...
Days of week:
Friday
Monday
Saturday
Sunday
Thursday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Months of year:
April
August
December
February
Galik
January
July
June
March
May
November
October
September
Days of week:
Friday
Monday
Saturday
Sunday
Thursday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Months of year:
April
August
December
February
Galik
January
July
June
March
May
November
October
September
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| I am not sure why we need to keep seconds the same. |
| Now we need to rearrange the months and the days of the week into alphabetical order |
You know, this reminds me. People are stupid. I once attended a .NET course which included a CD with exercises. If I even find out whose idea it was to label the directories with Roman numerals...
It's unsortable! You can't find anything that way. From that day on, I've used ISO dates for files and never looked back.
| Now we need to rearrange the months and the days of the week into alphabetical order |
| Why? |
I think we should keep seconds the same length because the way we calculate seconds is awesome. It's something like 9 million resonances of a caesium-133 atom. Also what helios said.
This reminded me of a discussion we had before, about how we were all going to teach our kids various programming languages. Well, my kids are going to be so well educated that before they reach primary school, conversations like this will be commonplace:
Me: Get in the car, we're going out to eat
Kid 1: Where are we going?
Me: London
Kid 2: But that's on the order of 10x105 meters away! Assuming a constant speed of 20 meters per second, it will take us seconds to get there!
This reminded me of a discussion we had before, about how we were all going to teach our kids various programming languages. Well, my kids are going to be so well educated that before they reach primary school, conversations like this will be commonplace:
Me: Get in the car, we're going out to eat
Kid 1: Where are we going?
Me: London
Kid 2: But that's on the order of 10x105 meters away! Assuming a constant speed of 20 meters per second, it will take us seconds to get there!
| Now we need to rearrange the months and the days of the week into alphabetical order... |
You forgot that days, years, seconds, minutes, etc, are not properly sorted.
From smallest significance to highest significance:
Days
Hours
Millennium
Minutes
Month
Seconds
Week
Years
| Now we need to rearrange the months and the days of the week into alphabetical order... |
Yes, but in Cyrillic:
Вторник (Tuesday)
Неделя (Sunday)
Петък (Friday)
Понеделник (Monday)
Сряда (Wednesday)
Събота (Saturday)
Четвъртък (Thursday)
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