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Below is an extract of a powerpoint Presentation I made in late 2008 about Metric Time. It will be updated with something more comprehensive at a later date (preferably soon).
Metric time is an alternate system to Imperial time - which is the standard system used today. Rather than breaking up the (solar) day into 24 hours, each into 60 minutes and each into 60 seconds... A more compatible system is used.
There are varying methods derived from people interested in the topic, or with creative imaginations. There is really only one system of Metric Time - and that is the proposed structure used in 1795 during the Metric Revolution in France. The breakdown of the day is as follows:
This breakdown can continue into smaller measurements, similarly to Imperial - metric (millisecond, microsecond, nanosecond) etc.
If we look at the range of values that can be used for each unit now - it becomes quite convenient. Hours can be from 0-9, minutes can be from 00-99, seconds can be from 00-99. To illustrate, take the current standard format of time, put to the second.
Metric time would allow time to be expressed with less digits and no ambiguity (i.e. It's definite of am/pm) Also, the colons used above are not needed, since if we express the time passed since the start of the day (which is what time represents, the time since the last midnight)... In seconds... We can think of the colons as a decimal point and remove it. (Since there are now 100,000 seconds in a day.)
E.g. The time is 6:78:91 = 67891 seconds into the 100,000 second day.
Our number system (how we write numbers) is known as being in "base-10". This means that in each column of digits, we cycle through 10 different symbols before doing the full cycle and increasing the next digit.
E.g. If we add leading zeros to illustrate:
001, 002 ... 008, 009, 010, 011 ... 019, 020 ... 099, 100. Because we use 10 symbols for our digits (0-9) - base-10 is the obvious system to use to make things easy. In hexadecimal, we use base-16 - which means using {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}.
E.g. 001, 002... 009, 00A, 00B ... 00F, 010, 011 ... 019, 01A ... 01F, 020 ... 09F, 0A0, 0A1 ... 0AF, 0B0 ... 0FF, 100
Conversion is done by multiplying each digit by the (place value - 1) power of (the base [16]). I.e. 15C = (1*16^2) + (5*16^1) + ( [C=12] * [16^0=1]) = 348.
As you can see, working in base 16 is quite difficult when our number system is base 10. What Metric Time seeks to do, is make all time base 10 - so conversion is as simple as moving the decimal place.
The system of metric time, having powers of 10 as the scales between units - makes working with it much easier compared to the imperial system, which incorporates 2-3 different bases, separated by colons.
E.g. When you try to work out the time between say, 9:45 am and 6:30 pm - this is a multi-step process. Usually, you would either count the hours between and work out the difference of the minutes later (10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - 9 hours) and 30 is 15 less than 45... So subtract 15min to get 8hr 45m. Some people convert to 24hr, add to both sides to make the lower a whole hour and subtract that way. Both are too involved for what is needed.
If you do the same in metric time, it's a simple subtraction like we were taught in year 5.
E.g. 9:34 - 7:96 is the same as 934m - 796m (since 9:34 hr is 934 min Metric) = 138 minutes, or 1hr 38min (metric).
The way of writing metric time, uses 1 less digit than imperial time being 16% more accurate (since 1s = 0.864 Metric Seconds) - PLUS, is all in 1 compatible base that can be easily added and subtracted, and more compliant with our number system.
Proposed format: hmm[ss]"t"
E.g. 37241t or 891t
Optionally, spaces can be added between 1-2 and 3-4 (E.g. 3 72 41t
Also, Colons can still be used in place of a suffix to ease transition (3:72:41)
Imperial measurements are all created throughout history due to people describing something that they think is relevant, usually on a whim. It is normally varied slightly, depending on the variables of the entity it describes. Also, measurements in imperial rarely have a rational correspondence between each other. E.g.
The "foot" was originally based on the size of a fully grown man's foot, which was about 12 inches at the time. This was obviously not always correct, depending on the size of the person.
The mile was known as "1000 paces" - which was also inaccurate as 1000 paces depend on the size and speed of the person, as well as obviously, how they walk/run. It was increased from a nice 5000 feet to 5280 because of the British wanting the Furlong (660 feet) to be compatible.
The furlong was a measurement originating in Britain, which was the distance that a horse could pull a plow before it needed a nap! I won't even point out the flaws in that pattern of thinking.
There are a series of maritime units that were used specifically by ships and the navy. These were the fathom (6 feet or the arm-span of an average size man), cable (600, 608 or 720 feet depending on where you are and how you feel) and nautical mile (6080 feet). The nautical mile was APPROXIMATELY 1 arcminute of latitude (based on the circumference of earth). None of these are agreed upon or exact worldwide, and are only approximations to what they are to represent - making nothing easier at all anyway.
There were also measurements called the link (16/25 feet), pole (16.5 feet) and chain (66 feet) that mainly assisted in finding the areas: perch (rod x rod), rood (furlong x rod or 40 perches) and acre (furlong x chain or 160 perches).
The galleon, the base and basically only measure of volume (pints etc. Are based as fractions of this) is defined as 231 cubic inches - need I say anymore?
The pound, the base system of weight (thankfully, all weights are based off the single pound). The pound is based off 7000 grains of "troy". While this would have made sense at the time to base weight off grains, it is not relevant anymore. Personally, I think the pound should have stayed in tact and rather than introducing the "gram", introduce millipounds, kilopounds etc. - but the base 10 system beats a base 7000/256/16/14/2/112/2240 system (depending on which conversion).
The same problem exists with time. The solar day is necessary of course, since the sun should rise and set at roughly the same time each day on average. The rest of the denominations built around it are the problem however. There are 24 hours in a day, divided into 2 parts (am/pm) - why? Based on the duodecimal system of ancient Egypt. Rather than counting on fingers, they would count the 3 bones in each finger of the 4 fingers on one hand (3 * 4 = 12).
The minute as a part of an hour is based more on the sexagesimal Babylonian system. They operated under base 60 - but rather than having 60 symbols, they would have sub number systems. Using decimal numbers, a conversion would be something like this:
47-31-29-04-59 is supposedly a 5 digit number - when each digit requires 2 digits (up to 10 digits in their system of symbols, similar to roman numerals). This obviously over-difficult system was phased out quickly in the new empires, but still remains in today's time - probably since 12 * 5 = 60.
The second is at least in the same Babylonian base as the minute, which lightens the archaic stupidity and irrelevance of it all. There are usually 60 seconds to a minute, with some rare minutes having 59 or 61 to adjust for the "vernal equinox" (as we'll go into a little later). Similarly, 60 is a difficult number to work with in base 10. There are 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to an hour, meaning 3600 seconds to an hour, 1440 minutes to a day, or 86400 seconds to a day!
When we go higher than the day, and look at the Gregorian/Julian Calendar (the imperial and present version of representation of dates) - things become even more excruciating.
There are 30 days in a month... Or are there 31? Maybe there's 4 weeks... Right? Which is 28. What about a leap year where there's 29 in February?
As hard as it may be to believe, things were once even harder for people to understand. There used to be 13 months. Only 12 were used usually, but on leap years - Februarius would be shortened from 28 days to either 23 or 24 (depends whether the emperor wanted another day of rest) and the 13th month of 27 days was inserted in just after this. After it was realised that having 360.6 days per year on average, was making the equinox fall behind the faster years, the new (and simple LOL) method was introduced to correct it, by making 46 BC 445 days long, before introducing the system of lengths of months we have today.
Similarly with the hours being duodecimal (base 12), there are 12 months to a year. How convenient if you counted on your finger bones 4000 years ago...
To complicate things, there are "leap years" added to adjust for seasonal drift. The "Vernal Equinox" is the name given to the Spring (northern) or Autumn (southern) exact centres. Basically, the mission of the Gregorian reforms to the Julian calendar is to keep the middle of Autumn/Spring on March 21st. If that remains true, then the seasons will all be in their rightful places.
Contrary to popular belief, the first day of Summer in Australia is not on December 1st. It is in-fact around 5th November, and the very middle of Summer is on 21st December - midsummer's day, or the Winter (northern hemisphere) solstice. Socially though, December - February inclusive is the generally accepted view.
Anyway, the length of a normal year is 365 days. The length between equinoxes is approximately 365.2424 days. To correct this, leap years are introduced that allow for an extra quarter of a day by adding a whole day every 4 years. This makes 365.25.
In the Gregorian reform around the 1600s (not sure exactly), it was proposed to be not 1 in 4 years, but 97 in 400 years - making the average year length: 365.2425 days! This was approved, and implemented by this formula:
Based on this, on every 400 year cycle, 97 years are leaped, making the painful approximation of a year, suit the solstice and equinox. We did ALL THAT, just so we can have our seasons start at the exact time each year... When WE PURPOSELY JUST ACCEPT THAT WE'RE A MONTH WRONG ANYWAY!!!
To confuse and satire the situation further... We add leap seconds every now and then, to allow for the changing speed of the earth!
We want to worry about seconds for the start of the season when we already think the seasons start almost a month after they actually do - just so some astronomers who can deal with this complex system themselves, can have it easy - at the general public's expense.
The catholic church has for centuries, kept track of lunar months to calculate the date of Easter, independent of the Gregorian Calendar. Why can't astronomers do the same for seasons and just tell us how far the seasons have drifted each year (about 6 hours at the most each year).
Why do we count our knuckles (for month lengths), deal with leap days and leap seconds, as well as multi-based numbers from different primitive culture's systems - primarily an imperial system that we realised 40 years ago was a worldwide flop - JUST TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR SCIENTISTS - can't they calculate this themselves without making us do the same?
What about this? We have 10 days to a month - but we'll call it something else than a month. We have 10 months to a year.
We now have a 100 day year - independent of seasons with no astronomical significance. A completely arbitrary man-made length of time. Why? Why not? That's where this one pretty much came from. "How far can my horse pull that thing before it needs a nap? I'll call it a furlong!"
At least this will be easy to use, and effective. We can express any date of the metric year as a 2 digit number. The format: md (m = month, d = day). Also, we can now work out the number of days between two dates. How many days is it from now (10 January 2009) to 4 March? A simple question with a complication worked solution.
How many days from "10" to "34"? Based on the metric months, 24... And I bet you didn't even need to break a sweat or count on your fingers (or finger bones).
With metric date... If your birthday is in the middle of winter... You can still have summer fun every so many birthdays. You can vary your Christmas from a snowy one to a beach-y one. A year independent of seasons, seems like a good thing, rather than a bad thing?
733407 days have passed since the beginning of the AD year numbering to the 1st January 2009. There was no year 0, so commencing from AD 1, including leap years (all 487 of them) we get a number of whole days. We divide this by 100 (100 days per year) and... If we say that there was a year 0 in metric (which makes sense more than the Roman idea of beginning with 1.1.1 as to 0.0.0) - the year is currently 7334.
The date, as of 1/01/2009 , is - 08 of 7334 - which can be expressed in years as a decimal: 7334.08
This change would require immense social and cultural changes, I know... But are they not worth it for a more simplified, accessible, relevant and compatible system?
The week is not used to identify the date. It is used as an arbitrary cycle that links with society and culture. While many believers in Metric Time and Date believe that a week should be made 10 days or 5 days... There is no need to change this. Humans have long operated on a strict ratio of 5:2 work to rest average, and this cycle doesn't get in the way of simplicity. Though, if people want to, it may occur that the week becomes used less and less, in place of the shorter, 10 day month (but it'll be called something else by the way).
Just because we think Metric Time is a great idea and is the ONLY method that we should use - does not mean we need to abandon the old system entirely. Everybody alive at the moment will likely never think of time in metric, but convert back and forth mentally - like pre-1950 children do with feet/yards/miles/pounds/stone etc.
We can still use it for its benefits, and celebrate a Gregorian new year ever 3.652425 Metric Years (another party ;]). We can even use it for old birthdays.
Implementation will be hard - but necessary. The sacrifice now is for the future generations. If you agree with that need - like 78-85% of you currently do with Global Warming and sustainable development - then Metric Time's disadvantages should be met with enthusiasm to make the future a better place for your offspring and related.
Nothing really (for now), except spread the word, and think about it. Feel free to leave ideas or comments abuot it giving your thoughts on how the model can be improved.
There are calculators located here that will assist your comprehension of metric time compared to imperial
- Billy Moffat (10/05/2010)
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