I would think it obvious that if civil time divided the day into ten parts,
call them decimal hours or decidays or whatever, that the current system of
standard time zones would not be used. One possibility would be time zones
0.1 day (2 h 24 min) apart, or 0.05 day (1 h 12 min), or no zones at all,
just Universal Time.
I believe that French decimal time was meant to represent true or apparent
local time, so the exact time depended upon ones location and the equation
of time throughout the year, although the start of the Republican year was
determined according to true time observed at the Paris Observatory.
--
John Hynes
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linus Peter Sweers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: [USMA:35700] Re: decimal time
Ten hour days do ot work well with time zones at all. Look at it as a 24
hr day with a decimalized minute.
On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 00:38 -0500, Bill Hooper wrote:
On 2006 Jan 14 , at 2:46 PM, Paul Trusten, R.Ph. wrote:
> We've talked about decimal time
>
> here (a 10-hour day, etc.)
>
In SI, time is already decimal; it is measured in seconds,
kiloseconds, milliseconds, etc.
Civil time ("time of day") is measured in non-SI units that are so
thoroughly (but debatably) ingrained into society that even the powers
of SI have agreed that hours and minutes (and even days and years) are
acceptable "for use WITH the SI".
So, anyone who wishes to change the number of hours in a day, minutes
in an hour or seconds in a minute may do so as much as they please
without any effect on SI (PROVIDED that the size of the second is not
changed). If you like, go to it.
Any such plan has to recognize that there
are 86 400 seconds (or 86.4 ks) in a day and whatever scheme one could
devise must accommodate that fact. It is impractical in the extreme to
consider changing the length of the second, and it is impossible (with
foreseeable technology) to change the length of the day (the rotation
of the Earth).
It may be, that for measuring civil time, the minute and hour are no
worse than any other possible arrangement.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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SIMPLIFICATION begins with SI
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