Yes, Pat, you're quite right on your intervention here. However, I think that probably nearly all of us know about most of what you've written. Please, notice though that the dilemma here is that there are countless applications out there that do NOT make use of the second, vehicles-in-general's speeds, rpm, etc, etc, etc.
The challenge here is to find a *new* time construct that would allow us to use other "units" within the time construct that would be consistent with the principles of the SI system, like its decimal nature. A proposal like 100 000 seconds to a day with a new 100-h construct would certainly get most of that problem addressed. More below. On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:31:59 Pat Naughtin wrote: >Dear Marcus, Carl and All, > >I would like to make a few remarks about the present situation of time >measurements in SI. > >The SI unit of the quantity, time, is the second, which is defined as: >... >Notice that the BIPM gives definitions of a minute, an hour, and a day in >terms of the only SI unit of time - the second - and that BIPM does not give >any definitions of a week, a month, or a year. Nor does it seem that BIPM >regards weeks, months or years as 'Non-SI units accepted for use with the >International System'. It is easy to see why this is so - there is simply no >fixed definition possible for months and years; the length of months varies >from 28 days to 31 days (originally for religious and political reasons) and >the year is constantly variable over time; Quite right. And this is due to the fact that that's how nature is, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that! The year IS "variable" and one caNOT come up with a rigid number of days for the entity we call month. However, we could narrow it down to only two, 36 and 37, for instance and if we attach the order to the parity of the month, it would be a no-brainer for all peoples to "remember" how many we would have for the current month (or any other month for that matter!). Finally... > the week is defined by only some >of the world's religions but not all. > Here it unfortunately seems you're incorrect in your assumption, Pat. To my knowledge ALL peoples on earth follow the 7-day cycle. The names of the days of the week may differ slightly with culture, but I suppose it's quite fair to state that this is practically universal. Evidently when it comes to an... "official" day of rest, so to speak, as far as I know there are only 3 variations: Fridays (Muslims), Sabbaths (Saturdays) (Jews and some Christians) and Sundays (1st day of the week) (Christians). Marcus >Cheers, > >Pat Naughtin CAMS >Geelong, Australia > >on 2002-07-16 00.44, Ma Be at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Dear Carl, first of all, please note that 'convenience' is more of a relative >> concept. A good deal of time this characteristic is tied to subjective >> opinions; at other times it's driven by applications that use the units in >> question. >> >> These are some of the reasons why we can NEVER satisfy Greeks and Trojans when >> it comes to 'convenience'! On the other hand we can *technically* build a >> system of units that ARE 'convenient' and by themselves if done properly. And >> this is achieved in the SI system. >> >> The difficulty here though arises when we deal with the *time* construct (the >> overwhelming case in your examples). Unfortunately it's fair to say that >> while the second is the fundamental unit in SI when it comes to the overall >> time framework we do NOT have a cohesive, coherent, consistent construct to >> deal with it. What we have is the mediocrity of the stupid Babylonian system >> which is evidently non-decimal and does not bode well into the SI construct, >> hence 'opinions' like yours (which are very well-founded, mind you. I >> unfortunately cannot find strong objections to your post in this regard). >> More on this below. >> >> On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 15:16:53 >> Carl Sorenson wrote: >>> The point below is an important one. Measuring in seconds is obviously >>> superior for many scientific and technical purposes, but in everyday life we >>> often use hours. >> >> If we had a decent agreed-upon time construct our 'hour' would be >> decimally-defined and there would be no difference in using the hour or the >> second as one would be able to simply move a decimal point to fall into the >> other "preferred" unit we may like better! >> >> Therefore, it's really sad that situations like these as you describe here end >> up causing us, metric supporters, a lot of grief, as we unfortunately would >> not have something... "better" to offer, at times. I just wished we had 100 >> hours in a day though... >> >>> ... Automobile speedometers give values in km/h because >>> those units are more useful when you want to know how long it will take to >>> get to your destination. >> >> Possibly (even though some here may argue that it would be more important for >> people to simply be able to... "gauge" how fast someone is going and on that >> one, m/s could also do!), but again, if hypothetically we had a 100-hour >> framework, for instance, it wouldn't be such a burden to get the m/s value and >> "automatically" derive the "equivalent" in 'km/h'!!! Finally... >> >>> ... It's also more convenient to use degrees Celsius in everyday >>> life rather than kelvins. Each of these units can be converted to pure SI >>> units without much effort, but they are more convenient. >>> ... >> The above is a typical case of simply "resetting" where the "zero" is. We do >> likewise when it comes to atmospheric pressure, mind you, so, this example is >> somewhat... odd in this regard. But, *unitwise* it's technically appropriate >> to say that either Celsius or Kelvin provides the same... 'property'. >> >> Marcus >> >> >> Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably >> Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. >> Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com >> > > Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com
