Decimalisation of time: Classic or Dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Would we all get sleek and modern?

― N., Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

5:28 pm: I couldn't go for that.

― jel --, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

didn't Swatch try and do this? divide the day into 1000 units, and have the time the same the world over, i.e. no timezones

― michael, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

somehow i totally guessed this was an N. thread!!

― geeta, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This is a silly idea. I didn't spend years at school learning to tell the time only for N. to come along and change it.

― Ally C, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i read it as "decriminalisation of time". imagine if time was illegal.

― queenoftheharpies, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i would outlaw mornings.

― petra jane, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i think we should make certain times illegal for some people. like mornings should be banned from our upstairs neighbours. they got up at 5am today, the first thing they did was put on their shoes and stomp around, whilst dropping heavy things on the floor. for three hours.

― queenoftheharpies, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

just be thankful they haven't taken up bowling...

― petra jane, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

they should be thankful i haven't taken up an ouzi.

― queenoftheharpies, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hexadecimal time... Right now it's 0x13:2A

― Brian MacDonald, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I quite like the idea of decimal time they tried to pull that up when they created all the other modern measures in during the french revolution(i guess...). I'm young and down with the CHANGES!

ive must have read this thread as "descriminalization of crime" some three times and not entered thinking it would be too philosophycal for me to understand

― Chupa-Cabras, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you speed the rotation of the earth up so that it takes 10 hours and speed up the revolution of the earth round the Sun so that it takes 100 of the (new, shorter) days, N., and I'm sure it will work very well indeed. You have work to do....You'd better jump to it. Chop chop!

― MarkH, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is N. Superman? This is the most exciting news since those purple carrots.

― Ally C, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You shouldn't mess with it. It would be amusing for a while, but the whole beauty of it is its based on circadian rhythms. Why base soemthing on something utterly unrelated to what the world is actually like? I love time. It doesn't exist. Actually, it probably doesn't matter what it's called. It can't be altered whatever, so why would reclassification make a difference except cosmetically? I have been in an exam. My reasoning has shot away, and I can't think proper no more.

― alix, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hexadecimal time is PURE GENIUS.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well as there's no way to evenly decimalize the day without having to completely reframe our concepts of the length of a second and a minute (and counting unfamiliar deciseconds could be really problematic when dealing with grenades and such), I can't see a very workable system here.

(The closest I can figure is actually a 20-timeunit day with each unit being 72 minutes or 100 centitimeunits and a centitimeunit being I think 43.2 seconds but really 100 militimeunits and a militimeunit being .432 seconds. Militimeunites would thus be sort of uselessly small. Centitimeunits I think would be pretty good and useful, actually. Timeunits on the other hand I think would be a bit long, although possibly we'd just adapt to regimenting time in larger blocks.)

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(Counting militimeunits = "1 - Maine - 2 - Maine - 3 - Maine ...")

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This sounds like it belongs in the alternate/factual punchlines thread. Except I can't think of a set up to set it up.

― Ellie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Swatch did create a decimalization of time (one standard) and it's called Internet Time. You get crazy times like @435 and @845. I don't think they ever made a watch that supports it, but I'd love to see what it looks like.

― Vinnie, Wednesday, 12 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

they did make a watch, but it was just a standard analogue watch with a 4 digit digital display for the Internet time

― michael, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

there's no way to evenly decimalize the day without having to completely reframe our concepts of the length of a second and a minute

Well like duh! Would this really be so hard to deal with? We had to totally reframe our concept of a penny and a pound in 1971 and we've survived OK. I don't know what a minute is anyway. Especially when I'm in the shower. Only problem - coming up with a new animal to replace elephants.

― N., Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what would be the advantages of decimal time?