Alternate Methods of Time

This can range from different number of days in a week, or different months in a year, etc.

Instantly I think of the day starting at 6/7, which always confuses me why it isn't. So it's 00:00 when the sunrises or close enough.

A year being divided into seasons not months.
 
The habit of having the day start at midnight is indeed counterintuitive and relatively new. Traditionally, the Jewish day vbegind with night (dusk is when one day ends and logically, the next begins) while the roman one divides into a day half (starting at sunrise and coming first) and a night half (strating at sunset and coming next).

Of course, sunrise and sunset are moving targets, and that gives you lots of baggage when you want to be scientific.

As long as you're on earth, you'll have some constants. There is the year - noticeable even in the tropics - and the day, and the two don't really align, though you won't notice until you start counting over long periods of time. The moon's phases are also pretty unmisable. Between these three things, you have to create a system that more or less works. Everything else is up to you.
 
Well, this would be a technologically late POD, but the adoption of a time system based on Planck Time.

Indeed I mentioned that somewhere.

Where we find out the start of the universe, and then count forward from that in Planck seconds. I can't imagine the number of digits you'd need.
 
The habit of having the day start at midnight is indeed counterintuitive and relatively new. Traditionally, the Jewish day vbegind with night (dusk is when one day ends and logically, the next begins) while the roman one divides into a day half (starting at sunrise and coming first) and a night half (strating at sunset and coming next).

Of course, sunrise and sunset are moving targets, and that gives you lots of baggage when you want to be scientific.

As long as you're on earth, you'll have some constants. There is the year - noticeable even in the tropics - and the day, and the two don't really align, though you won't notice until you start counting over long periods of time. The moon's phases are also pretty unmisable. Between these three things, you have to create a system that more or less works. Everything else is up to you.

Problem is that they generally do not line up neatly. The moon phases are about 28 days each, so you could have 13 28-day months in a year by following them. However this adds to 360 days so you still need 5 more days (and one more every four years) for them to fit nicely into a year.

The only way to make it work is by having two calendars (a solar and a lunar) and following both. The solar gives you days and years but really nothing in between, the lunar gives you the middle measurements. Whenever the line up it can mean a new century.

Also dividing the day into 24 hrs, hours into 60 min, and minutes into 60 seconds seems really arbitrary (I know there are reasons for this but It still makes no sense).
How bout a day of 10 hours, (each would be 2.4 or OTL's hours). These into sets of 10 "minutes" (although they are more like 15 minuets of OTL), and like that.
 
Also dividing the day into 24 hrs, hours into 60 min, and minutes into 60 seconds seems really arbitrary (I know there are reasons for this but It still makes no sense).
How bout a day of 10 hours, (each would be 2.4 or OTL's hours). These into sets of 10 "minutes" (although they are more like 15 minuets of OTL), and like that.
Because base 12 is much more awesome and useful than base 10.
 
In the Lord Conrad Books - Whe have 12 hours /Day, due to problems when Conrad builds his first pendulum Clock.
 
Interesting ideas.

I also thought base 12 was annoying, but isn't it cause it's dividable by so many numbers? 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12?

The year starting on the first day of Spring and not in the middle of winter.
 
I've wondered if a civilization could come up with a civil calendar based on thirteen 28-day months, then have a one-or-two day civil holiday to keep more or less in line with the solar year.
 
If the mayan calander and the codex's which properly explain it hadn't been destroyed would be good. Its the most accurate one ever built. :D
 
The habit of having the day start at midnight is indeed counterintuitive and relatively new. Traditionally, the Jewish day vbegind with night (dusk is when one day ends and logically, the next begins)

Both Christianity and Islam continued this pattern. Sunday Vespers starts on Saturday, and Ramadan ends at dark and begins at sunlight the next day.

The only way to make it work is by having two calendars (a solar and a lunar) and following both. The solar gives you days and years but really nothing in between, the lunar gives you the middle measurements. Whenever the line up it can mean a new century.

This is Christianity's solution. The sacral day follows the lunar Abrahamic monotheistic tradition only up to a point. Sunday observances begin at sundown Saturday and continue until Monday midnight (day and a half, I suppose). Also, the Julian or Gregorian calendars place the sanctoral calendar roughly within the solar progression. There are ways to square the circle.
 

Stephen

Banned
You can start with numbers you could have the Greeks create a base 12 or even 24 base positional notation using the alphabet. Counting in dozens is more useful than counting in tens. The sumerian Base 60 is silly though.

With positional notation you can count to 365/366 much more easily so you dont need to bother with months and ides etc you can just number the days of the year from the begining to the end. If you want a lunar calendar it would be much more sencible to keep it entirely separate instead of wedging it into the solar calendar. Like we do with the days of the week, we dont reset the days of the week every new year altough that might make more sence now that the weeks have divorced themselves from the months and the moon but that would put the calendar printers out of buisness.
 
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