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Metric Time

metric-time.com

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Re: Metric Time

#41

Post by mistercheph »

tcmb wrote: post #31
donatj wrote: post #14

The problem is base 10 is a terrible base for any unit that needs to be divided. It’s an arbitrary base with no positives based on our fingers. No reasonable species would have picked base 12 when base 12 is so much better and so close. 10 can’t be evenly divided into 3 or 4 parts. 60 minutes in 3 parts is 20 minutes. 100 minutes in 3 parts is 33.3333 minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

True. And having 7 days per week is majorly impractical, also for reasons of divisibility. With 7 being prime, it's impossible to do things every other day or every three days without being left with a remainder.

Wouldn't that make sense in a context where the useful number of 6 counts the days reserved for the affairs of mankind, and the seventh was an extra day reserved for rest or worship? I.e. the background of our 7 day week

Re: Metric Time

#42

Post by NullPrefix »

SulphurCrested wrote: post #2

You could call this lots of things, but you shouldn’t call it “metric” because its second is not a metric second. In the SI (metric) system, the second is one of the fundamental units. The world does not need a conflicting definition for the second. As someone who’s implemented a date and time library, the real pain is in dates, leap seconds and time zone transitions. 86,400 seconds in a day is a relative piece of ca…

Is celsius metric?

Re: Metric Time

#43

Post by jader201 »

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.

Re: Metric Time

#44

Post by mistercheph »

quicklime wrote: post #20
dclowd9901 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing about time is based on degrees of a circle, other than one specific way to visualise it - which many people don't use anymore and consider antiquated :)

Sundial; our notion of time is inextricably linked to the observed 180 degree arc path of the sun. The modern notion of time descends from that, and fails to stand on its own, despite silly attempts to define SI units via ad hoc correspondances.

Re: Metric Time

#45

Post by [deleted] »

abeppu wrote: post #19

Does this short page describing a base-10 way of dividing time actually fail to be internally consistent for the few sentences of text describing it? > A standard hour is broken into 60 minutes. There are 2.4 standard hours in 1 metric hour. > A metric minute is broken into 100 seconds. > A standard minute has 60 seconds. There are 2.4 standard minutes in 1 metric minute. No, a standard minute is 1/1440 of a day, and…

[deleted]

Re: Metric Time

#46

Post by robsh »

Decimal time doesn’t seem as useful to me as localized time. With GPS coordinates, we don’t need a timezone system, everybody could have noon at solar noon. When setting up meetings, one only needs to include the longitude and everybody could easily join at the correct time. It would be cool if airplane rides showed a real local time while in flight. Might be a cool app.

While we’re at it, the Gregorian calendar could be made celestial as well. Date could be based on the solstice/equinox and moon. Apparently this is called a lunisolar calendar and repeats on the Metonic cycle every 19 years. Though it’s off by a couple hours. That means if I recorded a message with lunisolar date and local time, a historian could probably infer the exact year it was recorded.

Re: Metric Time

#47

Post by INTPenis »

abeppu wrote: post #19

Does this short page describing a base-10 way of dividing time actually fail to be internally consistent for the few sentences of text describing it? > A standard hour is broken into 60 minutes. There are 2.4 standard hours in 1 metric hour. > A metric minute is broken into 100 seconds. > A standard minute has 60 seconds. There are 2.4 standard minutes in 1 metric minute. No, a standard minute is 1/1440 of a day, and…

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?

Re: Metric Time

#48

Post by larusso »

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…

I never thought about this. And actually never bothered to read up on the proposed terminology. Only thing I always assumed was that the first draft of all terms is not 100% what we use today. Especially because it comes from France. But that’s only assumptions. But yes I think you are right with the naming convention.

Re: Metric Time

#49

Post by feldrim »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #37
donatj wrote: post #14

The problem is base 10 is a terrible base for any unit that needs to be divided. It’s an arbitrary base with no positives based on our fingers. No reasonable species would have picked base 12 when base 12 is so much better and so close. 10 can’t be evenly divided into 3 or 4 parts. 60 minutes in 3 parts is 20 minutes. 100 minutes in 3 parts is 33.3333 minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

I need to divide my 12 into 9 parts. What do I do now?

12 hours / 9 = 80 mins. 12 mins / 9 = 80 secs. That's the point. And yes, Base 12 is superior to Base10 for this specific reason. But only for this use case.

Re: Metric Time

#50

Post by tgv »

Apart from history and (dis)advantages, nobody seems to address the site's rationale for this (rather impactful) idea:

> would make all the mental math we have to do when adding and subtracting time so much easier—especially when it comes to different timezones

First off: the time zones argument is BS. And the people I know have no problem subtracting or adding (quarter, half or whole) hours to a given time. It's a skill we picked up at primary school, so it really can't be that hard. The people who can't do that, probably also will have problems with decimal time. The only thing that takes more mental effort is something like "193.8 minutes after 17:03", but how often that does happen?

The argumentations following the rationale are also BS: there's no AM/PM in a 24 hour clock (as mentioned in other comments), and there's no advantage to 3.33 vs 8 hours of sleep.

IMO there are no advantages, and the page doesn't discuss overcoming the disadvantages and how to overcome them, so frankly is irrational. There's no reason to discuss this.

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