CarpeDeezNutz
Member
Wow thanks that's awesome.
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how come time isn't in metric?
- Thread starter Subpar Spatula
- Start date
Wow thanks that's awesome.
Sorcery.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
one of my favourite dumb jokes this season
SciencePilot
Member
Why did metric become a thing at all?
It's because of the French Revolution. They thought they ought to "rationalize" measurement, and so they made everything in terms of 10s (aka "decimal").
They actually did try with the calendar too. They had a simpler calendar with decimal time. Unfortunately it didn't catch on. I'm not exactly sure why though.
It's because of the French Revolution. They thought they ought to "rationalize" measurement, and so they made everything in terms of 10s (aka "decimal").
They actually did try with the calendar too. They had a simpler calendar with decimal time. Unfortunately it didn't catch on. I'm not exactly sure why though.
RickFrick'n
Banned
I'm not such a fan of the metric system these days. I much prefer the idea of base 12. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever fully convert to one way or the other.
Mushroomer25
Member
I feel like it'd be easier to just stick with the 24 hour clock and instead eliminate the concept of time zones & daylight savings. That's where most of the irritating shit around time comes from - having to change the time based on an arbitrary sense of when day & night need to fall on the clock.
This is what I like about inches.
That's just because of the clock, which is based on sundials
No year, (If I understand the system correctly) we are on the first day of the complementary days, the 5 days that happen between every year. Yesterday it was the last day of year 225, and on Saturday it will be the first day of the year 226.
Katzenjammer
Member
There is still an integer relation between hours, minutes and seconds so it's more bearable to convert than imperial measurements. An hour is also just shorthand for 3.6 kiloseconds in metric anyway, it still works for scientific proposes.
Time inherently doesn't work with 10s. Once you get to years you're actually measuring a real thing and not just setting an abstract, convenient scale to measure anything. We could make days and months tens, but at the end of the day there are always 365.25 rotations of the earth to 1 revolution around the sun. If you can't take it all the way it won't ever replace the convential scale.
jediyoshi
Member
What exactly is the scope of the answer you're looking for where that response isn't usable?
Not to mention the way time zones are divided 24 hours is most convenient(Each timezone is 15 degrees of longitude, it'd be some weird number if a day was split in tens). Even if you got minutes into 10s, it'd just make hours into some weird number so that 24 of them can fit in a day.
There are more convenient reasons. Angle of time zones is a major one.
Time and calendars are linked to the length of the day and year, and become distinctly less useful if they lose that linkage. If you set the day and year to have a decimal relationship, assuming the "day" is still roughly equal to one planet rotation, the "year" becomes useless for all kinds of important and useful things like knowing when to plant your crops or when the solstice is or whatever.
If you instead use a normal year length and set a "day" as a decimal fraction of it, you lose the link between the time of day and daylight periods, which is even worse.
So you can't have a fully decimalized calendar and time system that's still useful as a way to structure events on this planet.
If you instead use a normal year length and set a "day" as a decimal fraction of it, you lose the link between the time of day and daylight periods, which is even worse.
So you can't have a fully decimalized calendar and time system that's still useful as a way to structure events on this planet.
timetokill
Banned
Because America demanded something to throw in the world's face when snobby Euros come in and talk about how "metric should be used for everything"
I sort of wish we'd just go to the 24 hour clock. You can communicate what time it is faster and there's no ambiguity.
7 is a valid time for both something to be scheduled at in the morning and evening, for example.
1900 makes it specifically clear I mean an evening time.
Agreed on getting rid of daylight savings - it's useless - but time zones are useful as solar noon is no longer precise enough to coordinate business. Also you had stupid shit like certain towns being petty fucks and inventing their own times that matched up with nobody near them.
7 is a valid time for both something to be scheduled at in the morning and evening, for example.
1900 makes it specifically clear I mean an evening time.
Agreed on getting rid of daylight savings - it's useless - but time zones are useful as solar noon is no longer precise enough to coordinate business. Also you had stupid shit like certain towns being petty fucks and inventing their own times that matched up with nobody near them.
MsKrisp
Member
I have a sneaking suspicion my mum would have been fine with these units
LookAtMeGo
Member
A lightyear is a distance but its measured with time. I think time should be measured with distances.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
A parsec is a measurement of distance.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Gone in 100 seconds.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
You can blame the degrees in a circle and days in a year and the Babylonians.
It basically comes down to the fact that we are a very Earth-centric species. Any measurement of time will be arbitrary, whether you define the length of a second in terms of oscillations of a quartz crystal or the length of a year in terms of the orbital period of Earth around the Sun.
When it comes down to it, our natural rhythm is still dictated by a day / night cycle and seasons, and since no human lives outside of the Earth's orbit, there's no real incentive to move away from a system that uses this rhythm as its basis.
When it comes down to it, our natural rhythm is still dictated by a day / night cycle and seasons, and since no human lives outside of the Earth's orbit, there's no real incentive to move away from a system that uses this rhythm as its basis.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
So that's why Al Pacino was all messed up in insomnia.
Came for that Skinner quote. Left satisfied.
NekoFever
Member
I remember Phantasy Star Online trying to use this in an effort to make scheduling easier across time zones.
stan423321
Member
I think that the point was to tell everyone 12:00 is noon in Greenwich, not add more time zones.
LookAtMeGo
Member
A parsec is like a lightyear. Its a measurement of distance with time. I want time measured in distance.
parsec is strictly distance (19 trillion miles), as is lightyear (6 trillion miles)
if it helps you can think of a second as 186k miles for a photon in a vaccum
LookAtMeGo
Member
But the distance is measured by how far light travels in a year or arcsecond or whatever which is a unit of time. Why cant we measure time in units of distance? I dont get what you mean by a second being a 186k miles for a photon in a vacuum. Its making my brain hurt.
I'm going to bed.
Not regarding time but regarding the calendar;
Louis C.K. on counting time
Louis C.K. on counting time
Arcsecond is not a unit of time.
llien
Banned
Hm, second is actually part of SI and was there in most (all?) non-imperial systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
It is much closer to "metric" system (60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, oh well, day doesn't fit) than to inches/yards/feet/pound/spoon/cup.
Perhaps that's why it was never challenged.
Well, this sounds as if metric system was not more logical/easy to use, which is not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
It is much closer to "metric" system (60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, oh well, day doesn't fit) than to inches/yards/feet/pound/spoon/cup.
Perhaps that's why it was never challenged.
Well, this sounds as if metric system was not more logical/easy to use, which is not true.
LookAtMeGo
Member
A second is though!!
Yeah, but there is no 'second' in the definition of parsec.
Time and distance are the same thing anyway as per relativity theory... So you might wanna go to bed indeed and sleep on that lol.
LookAtMeGo
Member
Then what does a parsec have to do with my original comment about measuring time with distances? Time and distance are the same, thats why its called spacetime. So if we can use time to measure a distance (lightyear = distance traveled by light × 365 days) then why cant we use distances to measure time?
It just popped in my head when I opened this thread and its giving me a headache. I dont even know if it makes sense!
The French should've just changed the decimal system to a duodecimal. That way everything would've worked out beautifully. No change in units required, even America would've been on board (assuming we changed from decimal -> duodecimal).
You can use distances to measure time, but only relativistically. You can do it with light because it travels at c in a vacuum, so it's a pretty simple division problem. Light travels 300,000,000 meters in a second just as it travels a second in 1/300,000,000 meter (in a vacuum). Things that have mass, have to consider it relativistically. If you're given the distance you measure and the "primed" distance, or the distance you travel relative to a different observer, you can work out how long it took you (from either your perspective or the other persons). They're interchangeable because the speed of light is constant, if that makes any sense.
Jason Frost
Member
Let me tell you about something Swatch tried called Internet Time...
Honestly, a Base-12 system would have been ideal.
Right on! Sorry my decimal loving friends, but base 10 is an inferior system.
LookAtMeGo
Member
It sort of did. I found this ..measuring time in meters.. and while I still cant quite fully comprehend it right now. Its suffice to allow me to sleep now.
And it makes what kenstar said above make more sense now. Goodnight.
True Savior
Member
That's just a crazy thing from some english-speaking countries.
