AHC: Decimal Clock becomes standard

kernals12

Banned
The way we divide up our days is quite arbitrary. There's no reason except inertia not to have 100 seconds in one minute, 100 minutes in one hour and 10 hours in one day, with each second being 14% shorter than they currently are, which would be simpler for adding together different units of time. I know the French briefly did it after the revolution but switched back. So how can we make the Decimal clock the standard? I don't believe we could do this in the modern era, since it would screw up things like satellite orbits and computer systems that would all need their clocks changed but until 1882 we didn't even have standardized time zones, so it would be feasible.

Update: I clarified that each second would be shorter.
 
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You would need a second to be slightly shorter in this scenario, assuming you still want one day to be a full rotation of the Earth. Otherwise the day would be too long.

60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours = 86 400 seconds.

100 seconds X 100 minutes X 10 hours = 100 000 seconds.
 
From a quick calculation that would be an hour and thirty-six seconds longer than our day.
What problems could having a time day longer than the natural day cause?
 
I've had this discussion with a friend of mine who happens to be a mathematics nerd and he suggested a different decimal measurement of time with the minute still having 100 seconds and the hour 100 minutes, but the day having 100 instead of merely 10 hours so that a day would have 10'000 minutes or 1'000'000 seconds. He argued it would not only be more symmetrical and, from a mathematical POV, more beautiful with having 3 times the factor 100 but also more convenient in practical life since minutes would be short enough (8.64 of our seconds) for those new seconds to be for the most part relegated to the realm of science or sports events which do require very exact measurement of time elapsed.
 
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There is nothing sacrosanct about the length of a second that it cannot be changed. But the day being a natural unit of time its length is a constant. There is nothing wrong in dividing a day into 100 000 seconds. But making an hour one tenth of a day will not serve the present purpose of a unit called an hour. It will be 2.4 hours long and it will be something like watchtime of the ancient guards. It can be called a deciday. One hundredth of a day, almost a quarter of an hour (14.4 minutes), will be a more convenient unit. This may be termed a centiday, in metric terms. Then one thousandth of a day, 1.44 minutes, can be termed a milliday and replace the minute. Now the deciday, centiday and milliday can be called decid, centid and millid for convenience. Then 1 00 000 seconds = 1000 millids = 100 centids = 10 decids = one day. A metric system for time.
 
Very challenging, sadly. I don't think it can be done without a world government or else a government/tight alliance controlling the majority of the planet's economy.

Maybe not tie the decimal clock with the ten-day week? The ten-day week is a major problem from a religious standpoint, and to accomodate the religious situation, you create economic problems as well.

It's not that arbitrary. It's based in the astronomical division of "the heavens" into 12 parts and thus relates somewhat to degrees of arc.
It's why the smaller parts of degree are also called minutes and seconds.

But 10 (and multiples of 10) work better for the same reason metric is superior to US units.
 
But 10 (and multiples of 10) work better for the same reason metric is superior to US units.
Where did I mention better or worse? The reason we have 12h per night (and thus per daylight) is because the night sky was divided up into 12 by ancient astronomers who worked in 12s and 60s based on factors. It's also easier to divide up objects into 12 parts than 10 without tools.
 
You would need a second to be slightly shorter in this scenario, assuming you still want one day to be a full rotation of the Earth. Otherwise the day would be too long.

60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours = 86 400 seconds.

100 seconds X 100 minutes X 10 hours = 100 000 seconds.

Why is that a problem? Seconds, minutes and hours would be different units with a decimal clock. Very simple.
 
I know it’s not as elegant, but I have long advocated for leaving seconds and days the same length and measuring time in seconds, dekaseconds and kiloseconds. For example, I often get up at ks22 and eat lunch at ks43. I don’t think it’s necessarily better than what we do now, but I like to be contrarian. ;-)
 
In my Chaos TL, hours and minutes are the same, but every minute has 100 seconds instead of 60, as a compromise.

(My idea was: Enlightenment / rationalism start somewhat earlier than OTL, and in practice seconds weren't used much, so it wouldn't be too hard. However, IOTL the first watch with a second hand was made in 1585 - a bit too early. So the watchmakers will be angry anyway.)
 
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Base 12 and Base 60 are far more easily used than base 10 pre calculator/computer. More factors. Calculators have made us lazy!!
(Yes I AM a grumpy Old Maths Teacher who despairs at present day student's inability to do any calculation without that box of tricks. 2.4 hours equals 2 hours 40 minutes despite them telling you there are 60 minutes in an hour!)
 
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Toraach

Banned
60 has an advantage over 100. 100 could be divided by 2, 4 and 5 with a full numbers as a results . When 60 by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So I prefer 60 minutes hour over 100 minutes hour.
 
You would be able to divide days easily enough, in theory, but the longer periods are problematical. Week days are religiously tied. The month is tied to the Moon while the year is set on how long the Earth goes around the Sun. The first causes religious problems which we don't need. The other two won't change. It will take around 29.5 days from full moon to full moon and it will take around 365.25 days to go around the sun. As such the month and the year are not arbitrary.
 
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