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Metric Time

metric-time.com

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Re: Metric Time

#101

Post by happymellon »

twelvechairs wrote: post #3

> Working with base-10 numbers is so much easier than trying to think in base-60, base-12, and base-24. > To get a good night sleep (8 standard hours) you'd sleep for 3.33 metric hours. Quote 2 seems to clearly contradict quote 1. 60 is great as it divides into 2,3,4 and 5. That's a feature not a bug

8 hours standard sleep would just adapt. It's only 8 because it's a nice round number.

Very few people I know actually sleep exactly 8 hours, so the recommendation will just adapt to another memorable number.

Re: Metric Time

#103

Post by happymellon »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #18
simonh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 12 divides into 2, 3, 4 and 6. Base 12 is far superior to base 10. Those Babylonians weren’t stupid.

I was going to say: time is based on degrees of a circle, and 10 doesn’t work great for it. I’m not a fan of non-metric length measurement, but time seems to be a rather sensical usage of it.

> 10 doesn’t work great for it.

Because the rest of circles are so logical, π is such a nice round number.

Re: Metric Time

#104

Post by pmontra »

uranusjr wrote: post #40
larusso wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right of course but also keep in mind that, and that is just my thoughts after reading, is that the French tried to implement decimal time along with the rest of what we call the metric system in the 18th century. And it was the only system people rejected. So I think the author named everything metric to make the point that if it would be part of the system a metric second would be … long. But again I could…

I don’t know the exact history, but the rest of the metric system is designed with a base unit and decimal derivatives. Assuming we want to keep the day length consistent (I can’t imagine a system being practically useful otherwise), we’d have decidays, centidays, etc. and not have hours, minutes, and seconds in the system at all. A system with days, decidays (2.4 hours), millidays (1.44 minutes), and microdays (0.08…

kDay, MDay, etc could work in space but they don't fit well with the length of the year. As long as we live on Earth we cannot escape from our planet taking about 365 days to orbit the Sun. History proved that it's convenient to have the same event (let's say start of spring) falling at the same date every year. Hence all the refactoring of calendars and leap years.

I wonder how we would settle that matter if we'll ever be able to travel fast between planets. Each city had its own time zone before trains required us to sync them because of conflicting railroad timetables. So we ended up with the current timezones. With planets, each one would have its day length and number of days in the year, maybe even inconstant seasons in the case of precession of perihelion or double star systems. I'd say we'd settle on local time and a common space time but who knows.

Re: Metric Time

#105

Post by Denvercoder9 »

toxik wrote: post #74

I love how the example is super confusing. You sleep 3.33… metric hours. You fall asleep 9:50 metric time. You'd think we can just interchange the . and : so you should wake up 12:83…, or 2:83… the next day. But no, it's apparently 2:75 metric time. Why? Also nice how they IMMEDIATELY ran into a continuing fraction 1/3, which is exactly the point of the 60-minute hour, 24-hour day, or 360-degree circle: lots of facto…

> You'd think we can just interchange the . and : so you should wake up 12:83…, or 2:83… the next day.

> But no, it's apparently 2:75 metric time. Why?

You can, they just messed up the example by unnecessarily rounding off the times. The night from 9:50 till 2:75 metric time only lasts 3.25 metric hours, or 7h48m in standard time; less than the 8 standard hours they started with.

Re: Metric Time

#106

Post by funcDropShadow »

jader201 wrote: post #43
xnx wrote: post #5

This site says "Metric Time", but I think they mean "Decimal Time" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time ). There is a https://www.decimal-time.com/ site that has working Decimal Time clocks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

My guess is the author thought this was an original idea, and just named it “metric” since that usually means some form of base-10 measurement.

No "metric" units means they are derived from the meter. Originally, most units in the SI systems were derived from the meter.

Re: Metric Time

#107

Post by defrost »

pmontra wrote: post #98
INTPenis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand how a metric day matches up with a standard day. I flunked 10th grade math and later dropped out, my brain is having a stroke just reading those graphs. I reverted back to seconds, which is how I used to use Unix timestamps when I first started with computers. But one day would have 100000 seconds, compared to 86400 seconds in standard time, so how can they both measure a day?

A day is a day, Earth rotation defines it. What we can do is decide how long a second is and tweak it to make a day 100k seconds long or 86.4k ones.

If only the length of a day was constant.

It's not, hence leap second corrections to our current earth based imprecise observed solar time based on mean solar days (which are not apparent solar days).

Of course even if it were regular there's that pesky difference in rotation relative to what now??

Sidereal rotation time isn't equal to solar rotation time (mean or apparent).

Time .. less straightforward than most imagine.

Re: Metric Time

#108

Post by eps »

toxik wrote: post #74

I love how the example is super confusing. You sleep 3.33… metric hours. You fall asleep 9:50 metric time. You'd think we can just interchange the . and : so you should wake up 12:83…, or 2:83… the next day. But no, it's apparently 2:75 metric time. Why? Also nice how they IMMEDIATELY ran into a continuing fraction 1/3, which is exactly the point of the 60-minute hour, 24-hour day, or 360-degree circle: lots of facto…

Come to think of it, being able to cleanly divide a minute or an hour into 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 equal parts is pretty damn handy.

Re: Metric Time

#109

Post by eps »

vaughan wrote: post #102

.beat time or Swatch Internet Time is way better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

No, it's not.

Dividing one day into just 1000 units is way less precise unless one uses decimals, in which case it's just plain inconvenient.

Re: Metric Time

#110

Post by eterevsky »

This metric time goes only part of the way. "Day" shouldn't be a metric unit, since it changes over time and only makes sense on Earth.

Unix timestamp is the real metric time because it only uses seconds which is a metric unit of time.

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