Well written, Marcus. My sentiments entirely. Mike Perth, Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ma Be" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 10:59 PM Subject: [USMA:21716] Re: Towards A World Calendar
| On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:14:53 | Brij Bhushan Vij wrote: | >Han, Mike, Marcus and friends: | >I had already forgotton the inscidence. In fact, I use computer of my | >children that had *crashed* and had to be reformatted or whatever! I had not | >directly referred to your 'rediculling' my efforts. It is just natural. All | >these years, I had been accepted as NO BODY since I have had NO FORMAL | >education, but have been an autodidact. I have, knowing that *NO WORK* had | >been done in this area took upon myself to see through; and as a result | >THREW UP my Air Force Commission in 1983. I feel no regrets, since I | >invested my TIME and whatever I could save after meeting my childrens' | >needs. I have had many such - what one may call setbacks. Relax, sir. | | Thanks, Brij, for sharing some personal info about yourself with us. It does help us understand and know you better. Even though I know I haven't been the one mentioned specifically in this incidence I feel I must point out that I do have a lot of respect for you and your work. "Self-taught" men always deserve my extra respect and admiration because it goes to show a lot about the character of people. It strongly indicates that an individual is willing not to get stuck in time and wants to advance him or herself in life. Way to go, Brij! :-) | | > Now to calendar: *SCIENCE* has already tried (Decimalising the Year | >as:Bessilian Year; the Day, about which attempts are still ON (since I | >started work on calendars); the Second (already in use to the extent of | >sub-multiples or count of time in SECONDS by astronomers). IT HAS BEEN THE | >*hour* WHICH lacked this attempt. This is what I present it to all my | >friends. | > DOWNWARD decimalisation of the hour is *simple* but it is the UPWARDS that | >we as humans are linked to the comforts of our daily routines as: | >DAY/Week/Month/Year and so ON. | | Indeed. This just goes to show the natural tendency of people to be averse to change. I'm just glad that the use of technology, which usually is just forced down our throats regardless of our inputs, is more and more prevalent in our societies. So, in the end, ordinary people end up being forced to swallow up some of these changes without complaining or effort. | | I just find it sad that when it comes to this part of technology, system of measurements, that people fail to realize its full benefits. However, I continue to be hopeful that if we can finally convince "the man on the street" that this is just another of those things that they should just let "nature take its course" so that this war can be over soon. | | > If SI is to adopt a different unit: WHY NOT | >THE HOURS as BASE but count of *long intervals of time, is what we got to | >take care*! | | Unfortunately with the way the hour is presently defined this is a major no-no. One must understand that the SI framework is built around the use of the much smaller-sized second. The coherence/consistence that have finally been built into this system depends on it! BUT (and this is also one of the strong reasons for my insistance on advocating a *decimal hour*), if the hour was pure decimal, it would greatly facilitate its use and adoption for many applications. Just like we see the extensive use of the km, the g, the mg, etc. In other words, the use of the hour would be just like as if it were a prefixed second, which it actually *would* be!!! | | Now, the problem in this case would be how to tackle the 10^+5 relationship it would have to the second, as we do not have a specific prefix for it... Well... In this case I'd welcome suggestions from our friends here. Any ideas, folks?... | | >Some important parameters used for calendaric calculations are: | >Length of the Tropical Year = 365d.24219878125 - 0.07614 (t-1900)... | >If my calulations make sense, there is need to examine the CALENDAR | >QUESTION; I have the will to accept my failure where more improvement can be | >done. | | I found your "model" worthy of consideration, Brij. Thank you kindly for sharing this usually overlooked aspect of our calendar system. Very educational. I can also see no reason why its implementation would be contingent upon changes to the meter or even the second. Perhaps you could clarify this particular aspect to us. In other words, perhaps this part of your proposal could be implemented *even upon our current time construct*. | | > Yes, to those friends who advocate the 'TEN (10)' philosophy, WHY can't | >they think that *TEN belong to Decimal Notation and NOT METRICATION, | | The answer is simple, Brij, because, as I said before, these two concepts are intrinsically related!!! One cannot talk about metrication *without* bringing decimalization into the picture. Please understand that you CANNOT separate or dissociate or untangle one from the other. SI ***IS*** a *decimal system of units of measurements*! So much so that the very aspect of prefixes is *defined* therein AND as a PART of it. True, one could regard decimal prefixes as "outside" mathematical entities and move on. However, one must remember that this invention was brought upon us as an indissoluble part of the metric system, from its very inception yonder years ago. | >... | > I again tender 'unqualified appology' if I have hurt any member's | >feelings. As far me ALL FORGOTTON!... | | As far as I'm concerned this never happened, Brij. What matters to me, particularly, is the objective unbiased discussion of technical proposals. It doesn't really matter even who is behind them, what matters is their merits! | | Regards, | | Marcus | | | Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably | Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. | Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com | |
