Mrcus in USMA 9482 wrote:
>On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:00:29 Dennis Brownridge wrote:
>...The second of time is one of the
>>major weaknesses of SI, but it's too late to change now.
>>...
>While I agreed with nearly everything you said in this post, I
>unfortunately cannot on this one above. I still honestly and sincerely do
>not think that it's too late for a change there.
>
>True, the best solution to fix this might be to redefine the second to a
>.864 fraction of the current one, i.e. to make it "faster" (this would
>evidently entail changes in a host of other time-related units, I know...
>But I'm focusing on this from a theoretical point of view).
>
>But I'd be happy to also consider keeping the second as is while changing
>time's framework from a 24-60-60 one to some "near" decimal alternative.
>In that regard I consider the "swatch time" proposal a rather interesting
>one.
>I'm rooting for it to... "hold" or be successful. Who knows if we might
>eventually "switch" to using a "beat" as an official unit of time (I know,
>I know, it would wreak havoc just the same, but this is at least a
>proposal which is on the table and tha may have a better chance to
>"succeed" at fixing some "time woes" than to consider the redefinition of
>time as .864 of the "old" second. BTW, who knows if this may not trigger
>CGPM to reconsider meddling into this affair of time... again, "for the
>first time", and finally come up with an SI version 2.0... :-) ).
Forget it, Marcus. If CGPM won't change the name of the kilogram, they
certainly won't adopt the beat to replace the second, and thereby change
the size of 41 other SI units.
However, ISO recomends that the degree of angle be divided decimally. That
has the advantage of leaving 30� and 60� as integral values, and not
upsetting anything else
