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Europe pushing for lunar time zone

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Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#71

Post by rascul »

lifthrasiir wrote: post #61
rascul wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I would. If I need to call someone in their morning, I need to determine the same offset. I have plenty experience with both ends using UTC regardless of where in the world they are. It's much easier. Either 0425 works for both or we need to adjust one way or the other. I still need to know that your schedule is four hours ahead of mine, but we don't need to do math to figure out what time 0425 is. The cognitive…

That's a pro for having UTC, not a pro for having no time zones. I believe this is the main reason that going against time zones is flawed---people don't exactly know what they are claiming!

When everyone works on the same timezone it's the same as not having timezones.

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#72

Post by brigandish »

doctor_eval wrote: post #44
alex_young wrote: post #31

A zone of what though? Time zones, are zones of our planet where we observe time in some coordinated fashion. If we're adding the moon, what part of our globe should it be considered a part of? This all seems pretty silly.

It’s not about creating an earth based zone for the moon. It’s about creating a system of recording time that works on the moon. Time doesn’t work the same on the moon as on earth, so why should they be linked? Earth clocks are basically about the position of a point on earth, relative to the sun. The moon’s relationship with the sun is quite entirely different. So where is the equivalent of Greenwich on the moon? Do…

> why should they be linked?

Two reasons. Firstly, human biology, it'll be better for the people living/working there to experience via things like lighting and having visual clues from things like clocks to regulate their life.

Secondly, for communication with those on Earth in a way that makes sense to both parties. We only use our system of time because it is useful (daylight saving might be an exception to that;) so why bother with a more "correct" version of that on the Moon? It's not like you'll be using the days there if it's light for one Earth month and dark for another.

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#73

Post by ArekDymalski »

raydiatian wrote: post #69

If you’re on the same planet and or moon thereof, it should “be” the same time wherever you go. Everybody should use UTC always. No more scheduling “wait did you mean EST or CT” bs, no more timestamp BS, no more BIOS —sysclocktohw. We’re evolved apes, we should use UTC.

Once I had the same opinion and was a great fan of Swatch Beat concept. This text changed my mind: https://qntm.org/abolish

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#74

Post by slow_typist »

fretn wrote: post #56
Beldin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are relativity effects significant on the moon? Yes, as the article states, clocks run faster on the Moon. About 56 microseconds per day. Be that as it may, as far as I know, Newtonian gravity was sufficient for the moon landings. So I'm guessing this is more of a coordination issue between countries than a necessity for trajectories or such.

Forgive me my ignorance but does that mean that you age at a different speed at the moon compared to earth ?

Exactly. Look up the twin‘s paradox - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#75

Post by doctor_eval »

brigandish wrote: post #72
doctor_eval wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about creating an earth based zone for the moon. It’s about creating a system of recording time that works on the moon. Time doesn’t work the same on the moon as on earth, so why should they be linked? Earth clocks are basically about the position of a point on earth, relative to the sun. The moon’s relationship with the sun is quite entirely different. So where is the equivalent of Greenwich on the moon? Do…

> why should they be linked? Two reasons. Firstly, human biology, it'll be better for the people living/working there to experience via things like lighting and having visual clues from things like clocks to regulate their life. Secondly, for communication with those on Earth in a way that makes sense to both parties. We only use our system of time because it is useful (daylight saving might be an exception to that;)…

I would have thought that a local moon time would primarily be for the benefit of people on the moon.

Obviously, if you’re calling people on earth then you need to do a conversion anyway, just like we have to do when making international calls.

But if you’re on the moon, perhaps there is a better way of keeping time that will benefit others also on the moon.

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#76

Post by petesergeant »

lostlogin wrote: post #65
spleen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as the official language. This is along with the fact that English is lingua franca in EU and wider.

> Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as the official language It’s a nitpick to be sure, but shouldn’t it be “ Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as AN official language”

Sure, although English is absolutely the dominant language in almost all of the Republic of Ireland, where in Malta the situation is similar to the Netherlands, where most people it's just a very proficient second language.

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#77

Post by lifthrasiir »

rascul wrote: post #71
lifthrasiir wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pro for having UTC, not a pro for having no time zones. I believe this is the main reason that going against time zones is flawed---people don't exactly know what they are claiming!

When everyone works on the same timezone it's the same as not having timezones.

The point of the parent article was that it is impossible to make everyone work on the same time zone, as they will inevitably make up their own time zones. This is not even a hypothetical example, the article explicitly mentions western China [1] where the standard time zone was so off that everyone uses an unofficial time zone instead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Time

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#78

Post by 015a »

paxys wrote: post #6

This is fine to do while we are still talking about space missions and quick landings, but the moment there is a base and people start to live there semi-permanently you won't be able to just pin it to UTC and call it a day. Timezones are already bad enough in software. Having to additionally account for the moon would make people quit the profession.

I think a more interesting argument is: Humans are 24-hour creatures (ok, maybe not precisely 24 hours, but close enough). That's how our internal clocks are wired. Its not nurture; its nature; and it would take generations living day-in day-out with a different cadence before we see biological adjustments.

Sure, our clocks are 24-hours-a-day because that syncs up well with the rotation of the earth. That's the scientists' argument, and it isn't why we use a 24 hour clock. The real reason is because it syncs up well with our biology. Its hard to imagine a world where these two things aren't synced up, but we're headed to some soon, and its likely that any clock which doesn't sync up to our biology (TimeAwake + TimeAsleep = 1 Day = 86400 seconds) will be rejected by anyone who isn't ordered by their commanding officer to use it.

Its like... just use UTC. Be done with it. The argument that "its an Earth Time, and we're Interplanetary now" feels like its coming from a sci-fi fan-fiction writer obsessed with The Expanse and solving problems before they exist. The most important priority for any timekeeping system is that its Useful. The second highest priority is that its Scientifically or Mathematically Beautiful, and this second priority is so far below the first one that we invented timezones and daylight savings time and everyone who has ever had to think critically about either of these things wants to jump off a fucking bridge but we tolerate it because they're Useful (and, we're getting rid of DST, because we've recognized that its Not So Useful, again, Usefulness drives everything).

Here's what's going to happen: they'll invent some kind of new Lunar Time with 29.35 earth-day long days or some other nonsense. Every clock on the wall at Moonbase Alpha will have both Lunar Time and UTC and probably US Central Time because Houston & NASA. The scientists who invent it will pat themselves on the back. The janitors who clean the place will have their shifts scheduled in UTC hours and the Gregorian calendar ("yeah man I'm off at 8pm and I don't work again till Monday, yeah I guess it is weird that its been night outside for two weeks yet we still say 'monDAY', I don't know man I just work here same as you let's grab some drinks"). In 350 years, the Martian Humans will declare independence and reject all forms of Timekeeping that Us Earthlings invented, including the one the ESA (hint: EUROPEAN space agency) tried to invent for them, because Politics. Can we just, I don't know, focus on GETTING to the moon first, before we start paying people to retrofit our microwaves with new clocks?

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#79

Post by doctor_eval »

Daz1 wrote: post #60
doctor_eval wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about creating an earth based zone for the moon. It’s about creating a system of recording time that works on the moon. Time doesn’t work the same on the moon as on earth, so why should they be linked? Earth clocks are basically about the position of a point on earth, relative to the sun. The moon’s relationship with the sun is quite entirely different. So where is the equivalent of Greenwich on the moon? Do…

Why needlessly complicate things? Use GMT + 0, earth days, and earth weeks. Why introduce all this unnecessary confusion? There is no practical need to measure local time on the moon. >Earth clocks and moon clocks don’t run at the same time, due to relativity. I'm sure the 1/3000th of a millisecond per year won't be a problem

> I'm sure the 1/3000th of a millisecond per year won't be a problem

But that’s several orders of magnitude incorrect. FTA:

> Clocks run faster on the moon than on Earth, gaining about 56 microseconds each day

Unless my maths is wrong isn’t it actually 200 milliseconds per year?

It’s not a lot of time, sure. But it seems important to people like scientists.

Which, not coincidentally, is probably the most ”practical” thing people will be doing while spending time on the moon.

Re: Europe pushing for lunar time zone

#80

Post by petesergeant »

rascul wrote: post #25
petesergeant wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work with people in other timezones? It’s much easier to reason about what a reasonable time is for people when you know how it centers up with noon for them.

I do. And the math needs to be done either way, if you're trying to determine a relation to when the sun is at its peak for your area vs their area.

Sure, but I work across three timezones, and I can glance up to the top-right of my computer and see all three at a very quick glance, as well as knowing when people are likely to be having lunch, whether it's early or late for someone, and so on. I'm also now quite used to "Jerry gets up early his time" for certain coworkers.

I guess you could potentially have some sort of graphic to show the same thing for sunrise vs sunset ... but as you point out, the maths needs to be done either way, so why get rid of a system that works pretty well?

DST is the real enemy here.

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