On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 19:08:48 John S. Ward wrote: >Hi Vij, >...The French revolutionaries should have kept the 360 degree circle and defined >the meter as 1/9,000,000 th of the distance from the equator to the pole >instead of 1/10,000,000. It would have fixed our cartography / geographic >position / nautical mile problem. However, they didn't. > Hmm... While interesting, it would still not fulfill decimality completely. Again, from an academic standpoint I see a flaw with this in that the spectrum of *effective* angles would NOT amount to a decimal value, or unity (1), but rather a factor of 9.
But it is true though that your suggestion for a new definition of the meter in the above manner would have addressed the arc-angle business. And then it could have been a simple matter to do away with seconds and minutes for angles. >Given the complete and total global dominance of the meter, given the fact >that designs and drawings and machinery and measuring equipment and documents >and specifications and prices worldwide are currently in meters or units >derived from the meter, there is no way that the meter is going to be >redefined to be over 11% longer! > And I must agree with this assessment, not as much that it would entail so much change, but that the change itself does not seem to be necessary! >The same is true for time measurement. But on this one I respectfully disagree. Obstacles for change do not necessarily mean we should be stuck with an arcane, mediocre framework! (especially considering the potential lifetime savings that decimalization of time would certainly provide mankind) I'm just continuing to root for the success of the internet beat time concept, because it's a step in the right direction. And the beauty of it all is that if this catches on it wouldn't be a big deal to "switch" it to, say, percentime. Just like it wasn't difficult AT ALL to change from cgs to MKSA, etc! ;-) (Food for thought) Changing the definition of the second >implies changing the units for energy, power, force, speed, acceleration, >frequency, electric current, electric fields, magnetic flux, resistance, >capacitance, inductance, torque, angular velocity.... The list goes on! > Unarguably true, indeed. But, again, from a theoretical standpoint a change in framework appears overwhelmingly necessary *IF* one is really serious about rigor in the building of scientific frameworks. Until this fix-up takes place even the SI system in its present form will continue to be a piece of clothing item full of rags and fixes, like building it with patchwork as in quilting. >Realistically, the biggest improvement on time units that has any chance at >all of being adopted as a global standard would be to use the 24 hour clock >instead of AM & PM... > True, 24 hours is better than to deal with the am/pm trash. But dealing with 100 hours would be EVEN better, would it not? Theoretically, that is?... ;-) Anyhow, good points, John (as usual...) Regards, Marcus ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
