Even though you've addressed this to Brij, its content deserves some comments (below please).
--- Bill Potts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Brij: > > I'll say this for you. You're persistent. > Indeed for reasons I can't quite... fathom (oops, sorry). :-) > However, I must also say that, in your quest for the > decimalization of time, > you're flogging a dead horse... > I don't think so! There's nothing dead about that concept. What happens is that one needs to have some more good will (and vision) to touch on this subject unfortunately. > For SI purposes, there is only one unit of time -- > the second... > Yeah, yeah, yeah... we know, Bill. However, there is NOTHING to prevent the redefinition of the time reckoning to suit special purposes, while STILL keeping the SI second. My point is simple. While I no longer advocate an "official" change to the hideous second I can still sustain that the use of ONE conversion factor as opposed to potentially 2 (let's not forget the 24-60-60 trash) would definitely be a plus. (NOTE: besides, left's face it, what's so great about the size of the current second aside from the fact that every other time-related unit in SI is derived therefrom? Most unit definitions carry some significance. 0-100 C for temperature, meter for earth's circumference, etc. The day could well serve such purpose, couldn't it? Better than some incomprehensible fraction of some atom's length, etc. My point is that it could be attractive to redefine time, ultimately, one day, who knows... on something more... tangible, that people can reckon or better relate to - obviously while still not forgetting the rigors of *precise* definitions!) The use of hour/minute/second DOES require conversion factors, *period*. Alas, if one does need that to operate within the confines of the SI system why not consider a change from this ancient framework to a much cleaner decimal one??? There would be no harm in keeping the second while ALSO moving to a 100 ki-day! And I've offered plenty of crystal clear proof of its advantages here in the past (no point repeating myself...). > It's a simple physical fact that the motions of the > solar system and our own > moon don't happen to fit into a nice, neat decimal > framework... That's very true, yet we cannot escape using decimals for time can we? My point is we must work with what we have. Even though your sentence above is true a **framework** reference change would be more than welcome! AT A MINIMUM we'd get rid of the last bastion of framework mediocrity we still carry around! >... The 95% of > the world that uses SI > metric has learned to live with such physical facts. > Actually we learned to put up with the 60-60-24 trash! The fact that a day is not "constant" is not enough a barrier to prevent its *rationalization*, especially IF such move would bring so much simplicity around temporal concepts like speed, rates, ratios, time reckoning, etc. > Although not decimal, dates and times have been > organized in an orderly > manner through the ISO 8601 standard. That standard > has, at least, > eliminated ambiguity. True, but it still failed to *totally* rationalize this framework under decimal confines! Yes, we addressed YYYY.MM.DD, but didn't do a good job yet at ridding this from weird accounting. What I mean is: 2004.12.31 + 1 = 2005.01.01 (which aside from a small improvement to some 30/31 - 10 mo proposal - rendering it: YYYY.M.DD, one simply cannot fix - it's impossible!) At least we could address from a day downward, like: 099.99 + .01 = 100.00 ... 499.99 + .01 = 500.00 meaning we're on the sixt day, unambiguously! > I'm happy to live in a world > in which those physical > attributes we can, in fact, control or at least > define precisely are > expressed in SI metric, and in which those physical > variables we cannot > control or precisely define are at least expressed > unambiguously. > You might be satisfied with it, but *TECHNICALLY* it's *undeniable* that a change like I proposed would go a long way to improving this framework considerably. True, it's impossible to totally fix it, but at least on a "micro-scale" we'd definitely be on familiar solid grounds for sizes of days or shorter! >... > In the meantime, Brij, how about dropping your > futile quest, at least on > this list server, for decimal time? No comment here, it's your request, except that I find it *imperative* that one does NOT stifle research and progress! As I said before, if we do, we're being no different from ifp goons - defending something arguably better - granted - but that can still be significantly improved upon! Anyway, perhaps this has run its course. Respectful greetings to you, Bill. Marcus ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
