John Galt is right. This is for the time when we travel to the stars. On spaceships we may develop a new system of time, that is independent from the behaviour of the Earth and the solar system. Such a system can be decimal from the outset. In many cases decimal multiples and submultiples of the secons are used today. And even more, I oppose the proposed change in the SI units of length and time, and the concept of a 'Nautical Kilometre'. There is no need for any special nautical unit of measurement. GPS should have put an end to the nautical mile. Any idea what havoc the proposed increase of the meter and the decrease of the second would cause? All SI units will change. The cost will be astronomical. And of course, this would be very good fuel for the opposotion. But it would even hurt ifp, as SI is its life support machine.
Han ----- Original Message ----- From: "John David Galt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2002-11-30 20:39 Subject: [USMA:23686] RE: nautical metrication > "Brij Bhushan Vij" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Greetings for Captain and crew of Maverick: > > This may be an expected intrusion, from an Ex-Air Forcean! Yes, Knots and Nautical miles have lived far too long and it is TIME we did some review. I have been feeding 'some NEW thought' to reform the definitions of SI-base units for Time and Length standards. If the (day+night)of 24-hours is divided into 24x100x100 instead of the present 24x60x60; the *yard and nautical mile* could be commissioned into 'history books' and 15-degree 'hour angle' be retained untouched. Decimalisation of 'HOUR and Degree' could resolve to RETRIEVE the "concept of Nautical Kilometre". The New length standard shall be 1.11194886884 times the present *metre length*, so as to merge with unit for Time - the 'decimal second which is 36% of SI-second'. My good wishes Mr. Mead! > > Originally (in revolutionary France), the metric system did include a metric clock, defined so that 1 day = 10 metric hours = 1 000 metric minutes = 100 000 metric seconds. > > This was so confusing that it was abandoned after 16 months -- even before the metric (aka Revolutionary) calendar. We've learned this lesson already. Let's not repeat it. Regards, John
