Metric Time

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This website explains it neatly:

Guide to Metric Time (http://zapatopi.net/metrictime.html)

I think Metric time will be very useful once we start major colonisation in the solar system - very few bodies share the same length of day-night cycle that the Earth, and I like the idea of renaming the days of the week from meaningless old gods to actual numbers.

What do you think?

[redstar2000]

I like it a great deal...it is sensible and rational.

Which means, of course, that resistance will be fierce. :lol:

By the way, I seem to recall that Stalin (yeah, him!) attempted to introduce a 10-day week back in the 1930s.


And while we're at it, let's abandon the Jesus-based calendar...how absurd to date our era by that pious fraud!

The easy way to make the change is to set the Jesus-year 2000 equal to 10,000 AUC (ab urbe condita -- "from the founding of the city").

The earliest proto-cities date to about 8,000 years before Jesus...thus we'd be dating from the very beginning of urban civilization.

And imagine how much clearer reading history would be. No negative numbers!

Rome was founded in 7247AUC. The Palestinian tub-thumper bought the farm c.8033AUC. The American Empire was founded in 9776AUC.

Conversion is easy. For any "AD" date...add 8,000.

For any "BC" date, subtract that number from 8000.

Ah well, after the revolution...:D

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[ÑóẊîöʼn]

By the way, I seem to recall that Stalin (yeah, him!) attempted to introduce a 10-day week back in the 1930s.

The french beat him by at least a century :P

About the redating thing; I totally agree.

Welcome to the year 10005!

[ComradeChris]

Why start date recording 10,000 years ago? Why not set it to a more definate and determinable date like year zero following the revolution?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

There's going to be all sorts of argument as to when to start dating the years of the revolution from.

Basing our dates on the first civilisation would recognise the importance of the past few millennia of development as well as having no cultural bias.
Most historians are in agreement with the 10,000 year assessment.

It also means that we will appreciate just how long civilisation has been around.

[ComradeChris]

But the definition of civilization is up for debate also. I mean some archeological estimates put some pottery at around 12,000 years old. That's two millennium off your prediction (assuming the tools for making pottery imply civilization). It just isn't an exact date (even in years or perhaps hundreds of years).

But more on topic, the whole metric time thing is rather interesting. It would take some getting used to, but that's expected.

[apathy maybe]

I think you will find that this has been raised before,
by myself in December 2002, http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=5979
by timbly in October 2003, http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=18555

I still think that a 20 hour day would be a good idea (going for a 10 hour day would require 4 units of time, with no second equivilent because it would either be too short (1 µd = 0.086 ABT sec) or too long (1 md = 1.440 ABT min)).
I still think that the dating system needs changing.

I don't think that redstar2000's idea of changing the way of counting years is a good one. Sure it should be changed, but to arbitarily pick 10000 years ago seems a bit strange to me.

I also think that we shouldn't worry about these things at the moment.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 03:11 AM
But the definition of civilization is up for debate also. I mean some archeological estimates put some pottery at around 12,000 years old. That's two millennium off your prediction (assuming the tools for making pottery imply civilization). It just isn't an exact date (even in years or perhaps hundreds of years).
How about the earliest civilisation we can put a name to, the Sumerians? They settled the Fertile Crescent about 5000 years ago, meaning we can reset the year 2000 to 5000, adding 2000 years to any AD date and subtracting any BC date from 5000 to get the new date. We can call dates more than 5000 years old AS "Ante Sumeria" and dates less than 5000 years old PS "Post Sumeria"


I still think that a 20 hour day would be a good idea (going for a 10 hour day would require 4 units of time, with no second equivilent because it would either be too short (1 µd = 0.086 ABT sec) or too long (1 md = 1.440 ABT min)).

If you look at the Metric clock on the website I linked to, you'll find that there is a metric second equivalent, and it ain't that much faster than the ABT second. Plus I think it's better than the ABT second in that it doesn't feel so unnaturally long - when counting on my own I've found that I can be faster than a real clock.


I also think that we shouldn't worry about these things at the moment.

Sounds like code for 'don't talk about it'

[LSD]

I think it's a very good idea! :)

Metric time, that is. I think that redating would be a great thing too, but I don't know if any of the proposals here actually do the job...

Adding 2000 or 5000 or 10000 to the present dating system seems pretty arbitrary and doesn't fix the fundamental problem that we're still basing the system on 754 AUC...

If we really want to get away from Jesus, I think we have to change the start date to something specific and not merely increase the first digit.

[redstar2000]

Historical dating is "arbitrary" unless you begin at a very recent point.

The Jesus-calendar is wrong, for example, by at least four years and maybe more...based on the gospel "evidence" as to who was king, who was governor of Damascus, blah, blah. (The Christian dating system was calculated by a medieval monk...and he made a mistake!)

The advantages of setting Jesus-year 2,000 equal to 10,000AUC are...

1. No negative years in recorded history.

2. Easy conversion from old calendar to new.

We could set it even earlier, of course...perhaps back to the Neolithic era when modern humans first had something you could call a "culture" -- but the dates are even more uncertain: 25,000 to perhaps 50,000 years ago. Pick any number and you'd be approximately right.

Also, I'm rather attracted to the idea of dating our history from our earliest cities...it celebrates the beginning of human civilization.

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[LSD]

Historical dating is "arbitrary" unless you begin at a very recent point.

Absolutely.

But I think that we should make it more arbitrary.

That is, pick a date, perhaps at random, such that it is no longer even tangentially associated with 754 AUC!


1. No negative years in recorded history.

Well, I think that's a good idea.

But we can easily pick a date further back than, say, 4-5000 years ago without that date being related to Jesus.


2. Easy conversion from old calendar to new.

Will that really be an issue once the new system is adopted?

Asside from historiographers, who's going to have to be converting?

And even for those that do, in a technological society, will that really be such an issue?

(and improving math skills is never a bad thing! :lol:)


Also, I'm rather attracted to the idea of dating our history from our earliest cities...it celebrates the beginning of human civilization.

It's an interesting idea.

I just don't think that we should do that by adding numbers to the first digit. Because whenever students ask their teacher why that date was picked, they'll have to tell the students that it was taken from this old "religion" called "Christianity" who thought that that was the year in which "God wasborn". Yeah, they added a few millenia, but the "Jesus" part will have to come out.

I think it's better if we just start from scratch.

[Vallegrande]

We can't set a real date on the earliest civilization. I learned the Ethiopians were the first to inhabit the Indus Valley 50 thousand years ago, and I wonder if they had a metric system. We just dont know how far it's gone back.

[Frederick_Engles]

Actually, I like the imperial system. It was created by people, over many generations, for general use, wearas metric was made by mathamatitions for working out equations, which is all well and good, but frankly i don't think it's suited for common people.

[El_Revolucionario]

Well, there are all sorts of different calendars around the world, we in the west tend to think that everyone uses the BC/AD system, but Muslims, Jews, the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Hindus, all have different calendars. I don't think it matters though what calendar we use, it's not like as an atheist I'm offended by started AD after the supposed birth of Jesus, I only have a problem with calling it BC/AD because those do have a very Christian meaning, BC = before Christ, AD = anno domini "the year of our Lord". I like how scientists date things, CE = Common Era, BCE = Before Common Era. Those sound at least more politically correct than BC/AD.

I do get annoyed when people say "year 0". There is no year zero, the first millenium CE started with "year 1". Also, contrary to popular belief, the third millenium CE started on January 1st, 2001. The year 2000 was still part of the 20th century and the second millenium, and the 20th century only started in 1901.

[Vallegrande]

It was created by people, over many generations, for general use, wearas metric was made by mathamatitions for working out equations, which is all well and good, but frankly i don't think it's suited for common people.
I dont know about that one. That was a mindset of a certain people and it happened to make its way to the U.S. Even the English have abandoned their old system. Plus I think that the metric system wasn't for the few, but it was probably well known until the systematic destruction of libraries and such where that information was stored. Theres a lot of knowledge that was burned down because it was thought heretical.

[Clarksist]

I think that Redstar's plan is pretty good, and the metric time thing works, if we did this, we would have a much easier time with history for subtracting years, although we could start counting up from Marx's birth to piss everyone off.

[El_Revolucionario]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2005, 05:01 PM
I think that Redstar's plan is pretty good, and the metric time thing works, if we did this, we would have a much easier time with history for subtracting years, although we could start counting up from Marx's birth to piss everyone off.
It would make more sense to start the calendar when The Communist Manifesto was first published.

[LSD]

It would make more sense to start the calendar when The Communist Manifesto was first published.

The problem with that, as Redstar rightly pointed out, is that it would make every date before 1848 negative, which would just be inconvienient.

The US war of independence was in -72, the peace of westphalia was in -200, etc...

I think that if we're going to redate the calendar, we should start with a date before recorded history such that all recorded human events occured in positive dates.

['Discourse Unlimited']

Interesting idea, this "metric time". A couple of points to raise:



Even the English have abandoned their old system.


Actually, in my experience, most people stick to the Imperial 'code'. Myself included! I think this is because people "know" it - they haven't grown up with the metric system, so it seems unnatural. Not that this is a reason to avoid the "metrification" of all measurements, but as RedStar said, expect resistance!

On a personal level, I think I prefer the Imperial units. I can confidently declare to the world that I am 6ft tall - ask me my height in cm, and I haven't a clue. Weight? Easy - 12 stone. In kilograms? No idea! Of course, if I'd grown up in a world where "metric" was the norm, I'd doubtless think that using 12s and 14s was terribly strange...



... metric was made by mathamatitions for working out equations ...


Hahaha! Exactly! Well put! :lol:



And while we're at it, let's abandon the Jesus-based calendar...how absurd to date our era by that pious fraud!


Maybe it does seem a little odd... I think that one could legitimately apply the theory of "path-dependence" to this issue. Here's a definition. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence) Of course, it's usually applied to economic problems... But it works well here.

Our current concept of time is the product of thousands of years of history. It may well be "sub-optimal" - but it's what we've got. Path-dependence doesn't assume that change (from the current course) is impossible; it does, however, illustrate the forces behind "the way things are". Maybe that'll explain why attempts to institute "metric time" have, so far, failed!

[Vallegrande]

Can we say when the metric system really started? It wasn't with Dewey was it?

[apathy maybe]

It was first invented during the French Revolution.


NoXion:
Yes the present second seems too long, but from the website.
1 µd = 0.086 ABT sec, ABT sec = 11.57 µd
1 md = 1.440 ABT min, ABT min = 0.694 md
Thus there is no 'ABT' second equivalent. The 1st being too short, and the 2nd too long.

Also what I meant by don't worry about it now, you aren't going to change anything at the moment, thus think about it more when the opportunity arises.


Numbering years from the birth of a person (be it Jesus or Marx) just upsets people. Numbering years from the published date of a work will also upset people. But I guess it is all going to be arbitrary so 10,000 or 50,000 it is all the same to me.

[redstar2000]

Path dependence is indeed a good explanation of the "stickiness" of present conventions.

I was raised to use American units (distantly based on English units) and cannot readily think in or visualize metric units. Conversions are awkward -- I can remember that a kilo is just over 2 pounds and a kilometer is about 6/10ths of a mile...but when the numbers get big, I'm lost. :(

And not just me, of course -- American scientists and engineers are trained throughout their higher education to use metric units...which didn't keep NASA sub-contractors from crashing a Mars-bound spacecraft because the computer was not programmed in the correct units.

The trick is to start in schools with metric measurements only...just stop teaching the old units.

Everything in public life must be expressed in metric units...no concessions to the old units at all.

It's "hell" for the transitional generations...but "heaven" after the change-over has been completed.

One clear-cut advantage of making Jesus-year 2000 equal to 10,000AUC is that, unlike metric units, conversion is easy. (Computers would need a "patch" to express a 5-digit year.)

Additional calendar changes would be more awkward -- path dependence strikes again.

Why not a "week" of ten days? Or a year of 10 "months"? Our planet revolves around the sun in the very awkward period of about 365.25 days...and getting a calendar to "come out even" is a bastard!

There are proposals along those lines -- some of them get rid of the "week" entirely and others abolish the "months". They all are nearly as complicated as what we have now.

But what we have now is pretty bad...at some point we probably will want to scrap it for something more rational. But it will be tough!

A Marxist interpretation of path dependence: the dead weigh heavily on the living.

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['Discourse Unlimited']

Conversions are awkward -- I can remember that a kilo is just over 2 pounds and a kilometer is about 6/10ths of a mile...but when the numbers get big, I'm lost.


I know what you mean! From my shelf-stacking days at a supermarket, I know that 2 lbs is 907g. And 8km is about 5 miles... As you say though, the larger numbers get confusing! :blink:



Our planet revolves around the sun in the very awkward period of about 365.25 days...and getting a calendar to "come out even" is a bastard!


This, for me, is the key point. Base 10 is all very well for counting, and adding up. (Well - we've all learnt this way, so it 'makes sense' to us... I expect a computer would disagree! :P ) But in the "real world" - our planet, Earth - nothing is quite so simple as 10s, 100s, 1000s etc. Our current calendar (which has itself "evolved" from a more primitive state), based on defunct Roman deities ("What have the Romans ever done for us?"), may seem absurd in this era of MTV, automobiles, and other shiny things...

But as a method of measuring time, 'months in years', 'hours in days', and other such ideas (i.e. a "year" for the Earth to orbit the sun; a "day" for the Earth to rotate once on its axis), are RATIONAL - in the enclosed system in which we live. Don't you think?



A Marxist interpretation of path dependence: the dead weigh heavily on the living.


Hahahahahaha!! Superb!! :D "Gone but not forgotten", eh?

[Don't Change Your Name]

What about starting from scratch from some event like the end of some civilization or something, if we do know that date for sure (the year it happened, I mean)?


But as a method of measuring time, 'months in years', 'hours in days', and other such ideas (i.e. a "year" for the Earth to orbit the sun; a "day" for the Earth to rotate once on its axis), are RATIONAL - in the enclosed system in which we live. Don't you think?

Errrr....well, months, weeks and days are very useful but things like "birthdays" or "December" or february having only 28 days (and those born on february 29th having no birthday :D) are silly and irrational.

We could change to a system with 11 months with 33 days each, excepting that the first and the last one would have one more day, and so would another month every four years (maybe the second one, or maybe we give the first 2 the extra day + one more day every four years to the third one).
Or we keep 12 months but we move the days around so that there's no more 28 days in month 02 and it looks smoother and more organized.
Or 13 months of 28 days = 364 days. Add one more day to the month 13 and one more day every 4 years to the month 01 (or viceversa, or in any month you like).
More than 13 months is a bit too much if you ask me.

['Discourse Unlimited']

Come now; if you wish to criticise the current calendar for it's "irrationality", at least come up with a better (more "rational") alternative!



We could change to a system with 11 months with 33 days each, excepting that the first and the last one would have one more day, and so would another month every four years...


What? How is that any good? You've just lopped off a month - there are still uneven numbers of days in each, problems with leap years, and no benefit in terms of "counting in 10s"... The same applies to your other examples.

365.25 is never going to fit neatly into a metric system, unless you alter the length of a "day" to make the numbers more "friendly" - and that is most certainly IRRATIONAL, given that the Earth has a "built in" timer that's been working for millenia!

I'm all for modernising outdated systems of measurement - but only if there is a point in doing so!

[redstar2000]

One proposal I read suggested that we have only 4 "months" (named after the seasons in the northern hemisphere). The first three months would have 91 days, the fourth 92 days (93 in "leap years"). The new year would begin on the first day of Spring.

Simpler than what we have now...but still messy.

It does occur to me that one way to "solve" this problem is to ignore astronomical and even seasonal phenomena altogether. We are increasingly an urbanized society that has little practical interest in such matters except for those who are professionally concerned.

If we did that, then we could be as metric as we liked...we'd understand automatically that we were using arbitrary units that bore only a tenuous relationship to the earth's physical rotation around the sun. A "metric year" might turn out to be 1.0738 solar years or 0.9351 solar years or whatever...no one would care except astronomers (who use their own more accurate calendar anyway).

The original calendars were invented for agricultural and ceremonial religious reasons -- fixing the calendar every year was a priestly duty. These motives don't mean much now: "when to plant" a given crop in a given area is already well known by agricultural specialists.

People who've investigated human sleep patterns have, I believe, determined that our natural daily cycle of sleep and activity is really closer to 25 hours than 24 -- it is light cues from sunrise that allow us to "continually adjust" to a 24-hour cycle. A 25-hour day (or its metric equivalent) would be radically "out of sync" with the solar day...but so what?

If we needed to know the particular hours of daylight for some date in the future for an activity that needed daylight, we'd look it up. A program to do that would easily fit on our present-day cellphones.

Perhaps it is only such a radical departure from the traditions of time-keeping that would allow us to devise a really rational system -- one that suits our purposes, not just what nature happened to hand us.

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