Different unit of time?

[Rotomon]

For day to day life our unit of time measurement is fine but it makes me wonder why we don't have a standard unit of time that is not based on solar equations. Would it be useful to have a unit of time based off of Planck time which would be more universal. A celestial based time would always work while on a celestial body but what about when you weren't? Lets say on a dedicated space exploration mission?

A secondary thought would be: I sometimes wonder what would be the optimal amount of hours you could be accustomed to on a different planet? Id love to see a 36 hour day IE 12 hour blocks for work sleep and recreation?





I blame the school system for grammatical errors.

[jkbostic]

Interesting thought. I've always thought there were 24 hours in the day to adequately split up the Earth into roughly 24 separate time zones. Wish it were some function of 10 like the rest of the metric system, but if I were to guess it is somehow related to circles which are measured in degrees, minutes, seconds.

I believe that technically our second is defined by atomic Cesium.

[Rotomon]

Maybe I should just ponder a different division of time that was not based on solar time. I hadn't really read how the Atomic clocks work. After reading how those work im sure that wont be the last iteration of that measurement. Im just thinking outside our Solar time in a way not too dissimilar to imperial vs metric for measuring where out current solar time would be imperial and that we sort of lack a metric measurement of Time.

[Hawthorne Wipes]

For another planets, space missions, etc.. a new unit would be very useful (especially in the hipothetical of contacting another life forms)
Whatever, we as "terrestrials?" are bound to the solar cicle. Our whole life depends on that.
You cannot just apply a new way of day measurement without messing your body systems and rythms, so.. even with a new calendar, your working/sleeping hours would be roughly the same.

[angelsdeath]

One little problem for space exploration. Time is relative. For someone moving at higher speeds time is slowed down.

Also, Earthlings are in the optimal amount of hours you could be accustomed to. We evolved on Earth with a pretty constant time frame. Any change would take some getting used to and after adjusting we would suffer to some degree.

[Ryme]

Is the second defined using the decay of caesium or something? That makes it pretty universal.

[Rotomon]

The second is (from wiki) "Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but approximately synchronised, by using leap seconds, to UT1, which is based on actual rotation of the Earth with respect to the solar time." The measurement of the atomic clock is modified to fit a solar time measurement. Id like to see a metric version. Even if its not applied to daily life or not im sure it would have some use.

[Mihalik]

A secondary thought would be: I sometimes wonder what would be the optimal amount of hours you could be accustomed to on a different planet? Id love to see a 36 hour day IE 12 hour blocks for work sleep and recreation?

We are biologically programmed to function on 24 hour day cycles. Simply because the planet has a roughly 24 hour day cycle. You can't just give the middle finger to evolution and say "Fuck it".

You can't go against it because it would eventually end up fucking with your metabolic cycle.

For exact scientific measurements different units can be used, like atomic decay etc. But for a rough approximation and the regulation of our environment and life, the 24 hour cycle does just fine.

[luc54]

The second is (from wiki) "Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but approximately synchronised, by using leap seconds, to UT1, which is based on actual rotation of the Earth with respect to the solar time." The measurement of the atomic clock is modified to fit a solar time measurement. Id like to see a metric version. Even if its not applied to daily life or not im sure it would have some use.

Well it's kinda hard to do metric time in that sense as it's not useful in normal day scenarios. In astronomy they use epoch which is based on seconds and Julian calendar to calculate positions of planets. So it's basically just reference point like we have the common era for normal calendar, expect the time from start of epoch is only given in seconds.

The actual definition of second is

the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.

So basically it's tied to a natural constant, oscillation frequency of a certain isotope so it's alright.

[Masark]

Id love to see a 36 hour day IE 12 hour blocks for work sleep and recreation?

"The twins keep us on Centaurian time, standard thirty-seven hour day. Give it a few months. You'll get used to it... or you'll have a psychotic episode."

[Rotomon]

"the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of" Does this not bother anyone else? Maybe im a bit OCD.

[Deleted]

Interesting thought. I've always thought there were 24 hours in the day to adequately split up the Earth into roughly 24 separate time zones. Wish it were some function of 10 like the rest of the metric system, but if I were to guess it is somehow related to circles which are measured in degrees, minutes, seconds.

It's all based on 60 because the Sumerians, who invented it, used a numbering system that was base-60 instead of base-10.

[Masark]

"the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of" Does this not bother anyone else? Maybe im a bit OCD.

We either need to replace every clock in the world or we deal with defining the unit of time in terms of an oddball number of a natural constant.

The second is the obvious choice.

[Dezerte]

An atomic clock?

[Rukh]

Everyone continuously denies the existence of TIME CUBE!! FOUR EQUAL PARTS PER DAY

[Noradin]

For day to day life our unit of time measurement is fine but it makes me wonder why we don't have a standard unit of time that is not based on solar equations. Would it be useful to have a unit of time based off of Planck time which would be more universal. A celestial based time would always work while on a celestial body but what about when you weren't? Lets say on a dedicated space exploration mission?

A secondary thought would be: I sometimes wonder what would be the optimal amount of hours you could be accustomed to on a different planet? Id love to see a 36 hour day IE 12 hour blocks for work sleep and recreation?





I blame the school system for grammatical errors.

I see no way to make a time unit any more useful than the second. Every other possible time unit is just a prefactor away from it and thus basically the same - or it wouldn't be a time unit. What would you need a that time unit for, anyway?

Do you think there would be any possible advantage to using another one? What advantage would there be? Please be specific.
Human physology is currently the only thing that makes a difference one way or the other and your current system is already adjusted to that.

[Iphie]

Interesting thought. I've always thought there were 24 hours in the day to adequately split up the Earth into roughly 24 separate time zones. Wish it were some function of 10 like the rest of the metric system, but if I were to guess it is somehow related to circles which are measured in degrees, minutes, seconds.

I believe that technically our second is defined by atomic Cesium.

France tried decimal time, didn't really take. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

[Noradin]

"the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of" Does this not bother anyone else? Maybe im a bit OCD.

You want to find another universe? Because let me tell you: All natural scale factors turn out to be like that.
What would make "10" (or "2", or "5", or whatever...) any better than "9,192,631,770", anyway?
That it fits the number of fingers you have? Isn't that a bit... self-centered? And, like, the opposite of "universal".

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France tried decimal time, didn't really take. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

Well yes, during the "glorious" revolution they tried all kinds of ideas (like abolishing numbers that "reminded them of the king", like 70, 80, 90) and dividing the year into 10 month and the week into 10 days and kind of like the USA today nobody else ha a clue what they were talking about, so unlike the US they thought better of it and went back to the old system (some force was involved).

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Id love to see a 36 hour day IE 12 hour blocks for work sleep and recreation?.

That would create quite the problems for humans, peaople have experienced with this back when there were no human rights to prevent them, it did not turn out pretty...

[Deleted]

What would make "10" (or "2", or "5", or whatever...) any better than "9,192,631,770", anyway? That it fits the number of fingers you have? Isn't that a bit... self-centered? And, like, the opposite of "universal".

Basic math is hard, just make everything 10.