Metric or imperial?

[Tom B.]

Why would we considering the Earth's rotation speed?

A day would still be the same length with the new system, but seconds, minutes and hours would be different amounts of time compared to how they are currently. So 10/20 hour days would still last 24 hours as we know them now.

Anyway, thinking about it more, I doubt that we will ever change the current system, apart from when the human race has to move to a new planet.

 

[Timepass]

well second is si like others have said. min hour day are not really truely SI units.

there can be a kilosec (1000 sec). you have ms (.001 sec) and all that stuff which all follows base 10. Just it pretty rare to see anything other than the prefic for less than 1 sec. the kilo and so on you just dont see very offen.

Strickly speaking min hour day and year are not si units. They are used because out clocks and time are based on it. You cannt really break the day down into a base 10 with seconds (happens to be 86400 sec in a day not a good break down in that). Plus you cannt change the lenght of a sec to make it work since you free a lot of things in the metric system dealing with force. A newton is no longer going to be the same ammount of force since a sec will be a differnt lenth.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Furlongs is pointless in processor speed, since they are usually sitting still when used the Furlongs would be zero. However cycles per fortnight would be a valid speed for computers....

My computer runs at 1.8144 Peta-cycles per fortnight....

Alright then smartypants, how about hogsheads per chain?

 

[Diatribe]

A day would still be the same length with the new system, but seconds, minutes and hours would be different amounts of time compared to how they are currently. So 10/20 hour days would still last 24 hours as we know them now.

Anyway, thinking about it more, I doubt that we will ever change the current system, apart from when the human race has to move to a new planet.

If I can count right we'd have 8.64 units(hours) in a day based on 100s/100m to an hour. So basically to make that metric again (10hrs.) you'd have 27.7777 hrs. of our current time.

 

[atszyman]

Alright then smartypants, how about hogsheads per chain?

Well let's see here... Hogshead would be a unit of volume, chain being a unit of distance....that would make Hogshead per chain a unit of area approximately equal to 0.0154 square or 1.536 * 10^-9 townships.

Not a great performance measure unless you're trying to fit the processor into the iMac yocto....

 

[iMeowbot]

There was something like this for hertz. Some people didn't like the name when it was introduced, since the old term cps (cycles per second) was already long familiar and self-explanatory.

One of the reasons reason the new unit name came about was to honor Heinrich Hertz, which is a nice gesture, but some thought it was kind of artificial and forced.

In a half-serious attempt to keep the old name, the rumor was started that cps really stood for Charles Proteus Steinmetz, who also happened to have made quite a few contributions to electrical understanding.

The standards bodies didn't fall for it.

[edit: Awesome! There's even a copy of the handy Hz to CPS conversion chart that went along with it out on the wuhwuhwuh!]

 

[IJ Reilly]

Ow, that hertz.

Somebody needed to say it, and I'm just shameless enough to be the one who does.

 

[4409723]

If I can count right we'd have 8.64 units(hours) in a day based on 100s/100m to an hour. So basically to make that metric again (10hrs.) you'd have 27.7777 hrs. of our current time.

I don't think you are quite catching what he means. What he is trying to say is:

Take the period of time it takes for the world to spin (currently roughly 24 hours).

Let this time be equal to 10 hours, then divide these 10 hours into however many minutes you want in an hour and etc. until you define a second.

 

[Diatribe]

I don't think you are quite catching what he means. What he is trying to say is:

Take the period of time it takes for the world to spin (currently roughly 24 hours).

Let this time be equal to 10 hours, then divide these 10 hours into however many minutes you want in an hour and etc. until you define a second.

Ah ok. I thought the common denominator would be 1 second. But if you redefine what one second is you can do it, true.

 

[cait-sith]

My physics textbook has a picture of a "metric" pocket-watch from the mid-1800s I believe. It had a smaller "standard" clock in the middle to help people adjust. It never caught on, obviously.

 

[WildCowboy]

I just noticed this thread...don't know how I missed it.

I can't fathom for a second how this whole discussion got started.

 

[HydroMan]

Trust me, it gets much worse when you have some people working in mils (milliinches) and others in millimeters. (40 mil is about 1 mm.) But the names are so similar that confusion is sure to arise.

B

Really, over here we call them thou's, it goes like this 0.x=tenths, 0.0x=hundreths, 0.00x=thousandths (thou's) and 0.000x=millionths (mils/tenths of a thou'), 40 thou'=1mm.


Edit: correcting spelling mistakes, spell check not working.

 

[balamw]

Really, over here we call them thou's, it goes like this 0.x=tenths, 0.0x=hundreths, 0.00x=thosandths (thou's) and 0.000x=millionths (mils/tenths of a thou'), 40 thou'=1mm.

Boy would that make life so much easier! I'll try it ans see if it'll catch on.

B

 

[HydroMan]

Boy would that make life so much easier! I'll try it ans see if it'll catch on.

B

It's always worked over here, until you have metric and imperial on the same engineering drawing (it happens)

 

[Kaioshin]

My $.02 (whoa, metric!) on the whole time issue.

The 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. This definition refers to a caesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 K.", not "1/86,400 of a day".
The simple fact is that "minutes", "hours" and "days" are not SI units, but merely something, that is a remnant of the past, that makes our calculating, thinking, planning and the like simpler.

There were attempts to move to a superior system in the past, but it never caught on. Similar to how some people don't want to let go of Windows even though they hate it.

 

[benthewraith]

I like what I learn, so I'd say I prefer imperial. But I definitely admit the SI system is as good if not better. On the other hand, too many syllables.

IIRC, though, the metric system is used for anything under inch. There isn't any micro inch now is there?

 

[mduser63]

IIRC, though, the metric system is used for anything under inch. There isn't any micro inch now is there?

No, there are mils (thousandths of an inch) and they're very commonly used in certain fields (PCB layout is the one I'm familiar with). Of course there is such a thing as a micro-inch, but I think you're right that at that scale most people start using microns (µm) and such.

 

[desertfoxaz]

metric day

Currently there are 86,400 seconds in a day. A 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 we could have a metric day with 10 (insert name) and 20 (hours?) being 1/2 of the 10 designation. All we need to do is define a second as 7 942 433 849.28 periods instead of the current number. Then a day would be 100,000 seconds or 10 (segments) or 20 (hours) or 1000 (segminutes) or 2000 (minutes). Just an idea. The day would be base 10 and there would be measurements for those time and there could be the additional division by 2 to make the more common hour closer to a familiar time. So the hour and the minute while not being metric would still be a multiple of the base 10 second and day.

 

[LERsince1991]

Currently there are 86,400 seconds in a day. A 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 we could have a metric day with 10 (insert name) and 20 (hours?) being 1/2 of the 10 designation. All we need to do is define a second as 7 942 433 849.28 periods instead of the current number. Then a day would be 100,000 seconds or 10 (segments) or 20 (hours) or 1000 (segminutes) or 2000 (minutes). Just an idea. The day would be base 10 and there would be measurements for those time and there could be the additional division by 2 to make the more common hour closer to a familiar time. So the hour and the minute while not being metric would still be a multiple of the base 10 second and day.

Coming from an A level Physics student I'd say this makes sense although I'm not sure how it would affect today's measurements, of course you wouldn't be able to call it a second anymore.
I'm don't completely understand how the how issue of 'time' works but both the normal method and a proposed new method would work...

But... Why try and fix a problem when there isn't one
I know your just exploring the possibility but I think this is why new methods don't catch on. Changing the units of time is a massive task and it would just create confusion and for what?

 

[Diatribe]

Imagine 24 being just called 20 and all TV series being almost as long as a movie now.

 

[HydroMan]

Talking about Time reminds me of "God this thread is old"

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

It's idiotic not to use anything but SI units.

I love it when you get Americans who are freshmen undergrads doing a physics degree get told that 14 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard etc is stupid. Their faces drop. Some get very defensive saying to the good old foot is good enough. Ugh!


Give me decimal any day.

 

[HydroMan]

14 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard etc is stupid.

Yep 14 inches to a foot is really stupid.

 

[n8mac]

Yep 14 inches to a foot is really stupid.

But seriously, it is something to thing about. What would the change do to our history? If changed, it would have to allow for a conversion to imperial time. Now that I think about it, imperial time is only so from 1 second to 1 year. Less than a second is base ten (.05 seconds) and more than a year is base ten (decade, millennium). So would it be possible to go metric while keeping these parameters?

Also would metric time keep time zones?