I wrote a lengthy reply but it looks like it never got sent due to me getting timed out from my web based email. I have thus attempted to recreate that email.
When I said "I call decimal days decidays," that was an error. I meant to say I called the decimal version for the replacement of the hour the deciday. One deciday = 0.1 days. I'm using the same day that the difinition of the SI second was originally devived from. Thus one centimilliday is the replacement for the current SI second and it equals exactly 0.864 SI seconds (since there are 86,400 SI seconds in a 24 hour day). The old metric system had a myriameter that equalled 100,000 meters, but I'm not aware of it having a prefix for 1/100,000, thus I coined the prefex "centimilli". The term "centimilli" is only temporary until a more suitable term is found or created. Does the current SI system (or the old metric system) have a prefix for 1/100,000? Time based upon 10 "new hours" per day, 100 "new minutes" per "new hour" and 100 "new seconds" per "new minute" was actually officially adopted by France during the time of the French Revolution and it was used for a few years. It was thus in use by the French right after the French invented the metric system. It could thus be viewed as a refinement of the metric system. It was called the French Revolutionary clock, and several mechanical clocks of that type were produced. My proposal can thus be viewed as a revival of the that portion of the old metric time system. The current system of 28 to 31 days per month, 24 hours per day, 60 minutes per hour, and 60 seconds per minute is just as irrational as the Imperial (FFU) system of units for weight/mass, volume, length and their devived units. Our current time units make calculating payrolls a pain when people work portions of hours during the day. It is also a pain in calculating elapsed time in other matters. Calculating elapsed time in the current system if awkward. For example, how much time elasped from 2003/05/31 23:45:58.35 UT to 2004/02/12 06:13:30.10 UT? To perform the calculations we have to use base 24 for the hours, base 60 for the minutes and seconds, and base 10 for less than a second. Calculations using base 10 for all for all the units less than a day, and where each month is exactly 28 days long (13 months per year with 1 or 2 supplemental days per year) would be much simpler. The Swatch watch company began selling decimal watches in the late 1990's. Those watches are called Beat Watches and they divide the day into 1000 beats (millidays). See http://www.swatch.com/internettime/home.php. The watches are sold in their online store at http://thestore.swatch.com/cgi- bin/Store/swatch/ProductCatalog/ProductCatList.jsp? BV_SessionID=@@@@0637745824.1076868756@@@@&BV_EngineID=jadcjhghmeejbemgcfkmcihdg no.0&family=Beat for about $70 US. Swatch provides free Java applets for running the decimal clock on computer desktops and web pages. Some CNN web pages even mention the time in Swatch Time (which Swatch calls Internet Time) as well as Greenwich Mean Time (or UT). See http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/worldtime/index.old.html for an example of CNN's use of the milliday based Swatch time system. This movement is growing. See also http://www.timeanddate.com/time/internettime.html and http://www.squiggly.com/swatch/p/subcat/s/beat . There are many people who favor decimal time where there are 10 "new hours" per day, 100 "new minutes" per "new hour" and 100 "new seconds" per "new minute". For example Brij Bhushan Vij suports at least part of this for he said inhis post of 2003/02/03 "During my investigations, I concluded that Indus civilisation used 10-hr x100m x100s i.e. 10 00 00 units to divide their day with *whatever NAME" and he said "The decimal clock, I propose 24- hrx100mdx100sd". There is nothing wrong we me making proposals to International standards, since the standards were created by people making proposals in the first place. It is true that decimal time (which I call metric time) based upon a standardized day will not likely replace the current time system because it will be a very dramactic change. But the change is realy no more dramatic than the ongoing change from the Imperial system to the current SI metric system. Your resistance to my proposal is really no different than the resistance of the USA public to the current SI metric system. I have been a proponent of the 13 months/year based International Fixed Calendar where every month is exactly 28 days long (with one or two supplemental days added per year) and decimal "metric" time based upon the day (the same day that our seconds were derived from), ever since I also became a proponent of the metric sytem as teenager back in 1979. It was the SI metric system that inspired me to work at expanding the decimal nature of the SI system to the entire day and not just to in regards to lengths of time shorter than the second. 25 years later I learned that others had created such a time system as an extension of the metric system, way back in the time of the French Revolution. I also learned this year that Swatch is already selling watches using such a decimal time system and that many web pages now list the time in that system. I see nothing wrong with encouraging that the SI metric system be updated to have more rational time units, even though I'm aware that such an update will never likely become universally used. Quoting Bill Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > How big are this things (below)? How do they relate to seconds as > defined in SI? Let's not promote changes in the fundamental units of SI > which would destroy usefulness of the system. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > However if decimal time has 10 decimal > > hours/day, then 7:32 AM (07:32) would be 7.5333 hours or 3.1389 > > decimal hours. > > 3.139 decimal hours = 0.31389 days. I call decimal days decidays. I > > call > > decimal minutes millidays. I call decimal seconds centimilidays > > I can't understand how these various confusing time units are related > to SI metric. In SI metric, the basic time unit is the second (defined > in terms the time for oscillations of atoms in a particular kind of > atomic clock). It is not sufficient merely to identify how many of one > of these new units is equal to another one of these new units. At some > point you have to identify how big one of the units is by relating it > to a physics standard (or a previously defined unit, such as the SI > second, which has already been related to a physical standard). > > Gavin seems to be trying to base his entire system on days as the > fundamental unit. Unfortunately, all days are not of equal length. Even > the average day (the so-called "mean solar day" of earlier times) is > not sufficiently stable to base our entire time system on it. (Even the > average day is changing.) That is why SI does not define time units in > terms of the day, but instead in terms of the period oscillation of > certain atoms in atomic clocks. It uses those oscillations to specify > how long a second of time is. > > Fundamentally, I ask Gavin whether the "day" he is using is the day of > 24 hours with each hour being 60 minutes and each minute being 60 > seconds where those seconds are the SI seconds. Any other definition > would require changing the definition of the second (making the second > a different length of time than it is now). That would have enormous > negative consequences for all the rest of SI and all measurement > sensitive activities on earth (all science and engineering and medicine > etc.) Indirectly, Gavin seems to be proposing a second to be ten to the > -5 days (1/100 000 of a day). The current SI second is 1/86 400 of a > day. Such a change in the second (a 16% change if that is what Gavin > really means) us totally unacceptable. > > And for what ... > For the introduction of a bunch of new, non coherent units like > decidays and centimillidays (both of which violate other rules for > prefixes in the SI system). The prefix "deci in SI means one-tenth, so > a "deciday" should be one-tenth of a day, but Gavin says that a deciday > equals a day. Gavin suggests using the term centimillidays in > contradiction to the SI rule that prefixes are not to be used in > combination. SI rules require the use of the nearest single prefix > instead. And if he is calling the decimal day by the name "deciday" > then why isn't his smaller unit called the centimillideciday? All this > is complete confusion. > > I am anxious to promote the use of the SI metric system in the USA and > anywhere else that it is not currently in common use. I am NOT > interested in discussing wholesale changes in SI that would destroy the > simplicity and usefulness of that system. > > Regards, > Bill Hooper > Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA > >
