

Simple Universal Time - telmich
http://www.nico.schottelius.org/blog/introducing-simple-universal-time/

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claudius
First of all, there is already the Swatch Internet Time[0], which is a very
similar concept (and similarly underused).

But more importantly, you would have to redefine the length of a second in
order to keep days the same length. Redefining the length of a second is _not_
_good_. Really, no.

Then there is the problem that this is not really a sensible metric time – 10
hours, 100 minutes and 100 seconds each? Frankly, that's stupid – ideally, you
want the conversion factors to always be the same, ideally 10³. The swatch
time mentioned above got this right with 1000 minutes (‘.beats’)/day, if
absolutely necessary, you could probably also go with 100 quarter-hours/day
and 100 seconds/quarter-hour, with 1 new second = 8.64 old seconds, or 1 old
second ~ 0.12 new seconds.

The underlying problem here is that time lengths are intrinsically non-metric
and there is little to no way to consistently make a year and a day both
‘metric’, simply because nature doesn’t require them to be. The same goes for
nearly all other SI units – the equator is 40 Mm, the average height of a
human is ~2m, a human weighs 80kg, not 100kg (and really, _k_ g as the base
unit?!).

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time>

~~~
kmasters
I agree its a little bizarre, but as for the length of days, changing to a
metric equivalent wouldnt really require changing the length of a second would
it?

We have a fixed system right now and when its off we just say this day is a
minute longer and clocks synchronize.

There's nothing inherently accurate about 60 60 24.

What I cant wrap my head around is the lack of timezones. If I switched to UTC
or something based on UTC right now would I be waking up every day at 5 PM? I
dont know and I dont much care.

But it seems like there is tension between local/global requirements and right
now we favor local because its where we live.

~~~
claudius
The point is that at the moment, a day has 86400 SI seconds. If you want to
keep it that way, i.e. change neither the length of a day nor change the
length of a second, you will have to either divide these 86400 SI seconds up
into some sensible pieces (60 60 24, e.g.) or have some remainder left (one
day of 10 hours and some weird stuff at the end).

The problem here is not the one-off second, but the length of the second per-
se which would have to change. Unfortunately, the length of the second is so
deeply tied into the SI system that I’d rather have a non-metric day than a
change in the length of seconds.

Timezones are somewhat orthogonal to this, and while there is some advantage
to having a global time (‘let’s meet at 17:00, okay?’), local timezones are
also somewhat helpful – you can expect shops to open around 8:00 all over the
world and wouldn’t expect them to be open at 22:00; similarly, local
authorities can change the time (and hence the time when shops open/close,
e.g.) without everyone having to reprint their opening times signs (as happens
for DST or during WWI/II).

~~~
kmasters
I didnt mean that the second wouldnt have to be redefined at all only that if
it was defined in metric, it wouldnt be any more or less prone to adjustment
(which I though was the first comments point) than our current system which is
inaccurate.

So if our current system still has to be adjusted periodically to fit nature,
then what is the real impact of changing the duration of a second? Besides the
obvious: breaking every clock on earth LOL

~~~
claudius
Breaking clocks is boring, but how about breaking SI? We would have to:

    
    
      - redefine the speed of light
      - redefine the unit of distance
      - redefine the unit of work 
      - redefine the unit of the electrical current
      - redefine the unit of light flux
    

The mole, kilogramm and kelvin should be fine, but well. Furthermore, if we
wanted to keep a meter the length it currently is, the acceleration due to the
gravitation field of the earth would change (currently 9.81 m/s²), along with
the kinetic energy of a mass of one kilogram travelling at 1 m/s (currently
1/2 J) and roughly fifty trillion other things.

Really, no. No. NO.

------
attheodo
Is it only me or this sounds like a terrible idea? Maybe it will eventually be
more productive but during the transition phase, there'll be mayhem. Not to
mention all the unusable clocks, hardware etc that'll have to be completely
scraped.

~~~
telmich
Hardware is actually easy - you can keep the clock in UTC and display the time
in SUT.

------
nathan_long
Previously tried in the late 1700s:

"Decimal time is the representation of the time of day using units which are
decimally related. This term is often used to refer specifically to French
Revolutionary Time, which divides the day into 10 decimal hours, each decimal
hour into 100 decimal minutes and each decimal minute into 100 decimal
seconds"

It sounds quite practical, but one reason we have 60-based time and 360
degrees in a circle is that they divide evenly so many ways. Eg, 60 minutes
divides evenly by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so it's easy to measure a third of an
hour or 1/6 of a circle.

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telmich
I've just discovered the C implementation of SUT at
<https://github.com/benkaiser/sut.c> \- nice to see it working on the
commandline :-)

------
greensand
Even if this was well thought out it would never catch on.

~~~
telmich
If you think something is impossible, you've just made it impossible for you.

Thus my approach is to do - time will show if it was impossible or not.

~~~
claudius
And if you refuse to accept that the optimal solution is impossible to
implement, you will forever try to build a perpetuum mobile rather than go
with the second-best solution.

~~~
telmich
Absolutely - fair point and taken. The optimal solution for time & date is
probably way beyond SUT: One could discuss months (12, why so), weeks (7,
wtf?), days per month (28-31), ... I believe there are many ways to improve
our current life. SUT is a humble and very practical proposal, as soon as you
accept that standing up is at a different time in Japan than in Berlin.

Give it a try in thinking, you may enjoy the light feeling in your stomach
afterwards.

~~~
claudius
Well, yes, but unfortunately, time is inherently non-metric. As long as we
mainly operate on this planet, we have two basic units of time: the day and
the year.

Now unfortunately, the latter is roughly 365.24 days, so whatever unit X you
choose such that 1 day = 10^n X, one year will be 3.65 10^{n+2} X. Again,
there are two choices (as outlined before for the case 86400s = 1d): Either
divide the year into some arbitrary months (365 has the ugly property of being
5 × 73) or have stupid stuff at the end (apparently some cultures have 12
months of 30 days each and five special ones). So is it possible to implement
a much better way of counting time? Certainly, yes. Is SUT such a way?
Probably. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.

(And, again: The matter of timezones is orthogonal to the matter of how you
divide a day, you can easily abolish timezones and still use 24 _60_ 60 – you
can even do so slowly by using UTC as an implicit timezone with your social
circle.)

((As hinted at above, this whole matter will get even more ugly when there are
humans on the Mars and Earth – clearly a second (basic SI unit) should be the
same length on both planets, but what about hours? Days? Years?))

------
telmich
claudius, you are right, there is swatch beat. It actually tries to solve the
problem different. The problem with beat is that humans are used to
hours/minutes/seconds. That's why SUT reuses this principle.

