On Wednesday, 2002 February 20 0646, Louis JOURDAN wrote: > To night we will get, for a minute, a rare "palindrome" : we will > write time and date as 20 02 20 02 2002 (i.e. 20H 02, 20 February > 2002) or 200220022002, which can be read in both directions. > > Not a real argument for SI nor ISO, but maybe a reason to adopt the > "European" style for date and time ? Anyway some fun...
This provides an occasion for me to post a copy of an email I sent to a local columnist. Note that it starts with the palindromes Louis speaks of and suggests some fine opportunities for us pro-metrication folks. So slog on until you get to that part, which is after the tedious bit about ISO.... This lead to an interview of me by her via telephone on Monday, and opportunity to proof what was written, and the publshing of a column in today's paper. That column is off topic for metrication so see http://www.charleston.net/pub/news/gmlc/gml0220.htm especially if you want to brush up on the special and general theories of relativity, handled in a light and humorous fashion. But here's the email I sent last Saturday to the GMLc editor and which does speak about metric issues (following ISO): [to the editor of Good Morning Lowcountry:] Now I see the reason for your interest in time, which is known to physicists as the property of the universe that keeps everthing from happening all at once. If I had known what you were up to and if you had asked me, I would have given you some bad news and some even better news. There are indeed standards on formatting dates and times. If we can have standards on the size of the holes in "swiss" cheese, why not one on how to record "when"? The most universally accepted standard comes from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) -- essentially a world-wide, government- and industry-driven standards organization. Theirs is known as ISO 8601 and what is nifty about this standard to many people is that *everything* is ordered from largest to smallest (year to minute or second, left to right). It provides two main forms, one readable by people and one readable by computers. The human readable form sets certain punctuation marks to help keep track of where you are in the date and time statement and the computer readable one just drops the punctuation and runs everything together. Otherwise they are the same. Still, the results would have been "pretty neat" for that date and time next Wednesday. In human readable form it would be 2002-02-20 20:02 and in computer readable form it would have been 200202202002 or 2002 0220 2002 so essentially your month and day numbers would have been turned inside out. But in this form, and since one is allowed to drop the centuries providing the current century is understood, the first Saturday of this month was neater when, just a couple of hours after midnight, we had 02-02-02 02:02 or, to the second, 02-02-02 02:02:02 A century, month, day, hour, and minute later we will have 03-03-03 03:03 or, to the second, 03-03-03 03:03:03 and I'll try to remember to send you a reminder -- if we're both around then. In the meantime, we might have to settle for the likes of 02-03-04 05:06 which occurs on the first Monday of next month and 02-04-06 04:02 in April or the slightly less elegant 02-04-06 08:10. I kind of like the first one in this paragraph because we can add the seconds, which gives us 02-03-04 05:06:07 or, for computers, 020304050607 and I certainly hope to be around for that one! So make yourself a tickler for your columns on March 04 and April 06 if you wish to mention this. It turns out that there's another date and time that is special to many of us. I'm familiar with some of the ISO standards because I'm on three metric standards committees in industry and we need to know what other standards folks are up to. But to us metrication proponents, the special date and time each year is given as 10-10 10:10 in celebration of the metric system, which is of course based on the number 10. Starting on the first day of January in 2010 the European Union will join Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea in banning non-metric markings of any kind on goods they import. The United States has already revised the UPLR* to allow certain retail goods to be sold in the U.S. with metric-only labeling. South Carolina was one of the first states to adopt that! The federal government is working on revising the FPLA** to do the same for goods they cover. So by 2010 we may be an essentially all-metric country and Metric Day that year will be special and celebrated down to the second as 10-10-10 10:10:10 Get your metric ruler now! (I've got plenty if you need one and Elsa McDowell can tell you how easy the metric system is, if you're a wee bit rusty on it.) Now as for submarines, it's not so bad once the crew learns how to take turns breathing. Been there and done that and done that and done that and.... * UPLR, Uniform Packaging and Labeling Regulation ** FPLA, Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (see my Metric Methods website at http://metricmethods.com/) Jim (LCDR, USN-Ret.)
