[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammer report

[Alain Williams]

On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 09:34:20AM +0000, Tethys wrote:
> 
> >They could have declared the year to have 360 days
> >so that it was more readily divisible into exact
> >amounts. An annual five day holiday to celebrate 
> >the wisdom of the idea would be good.
> 
> You may joke about that, but several of the metric time groups have proposed
> similar systems. Various poeple have suggested a 10 day week, with a 3 day
> weekend, and a 5 day yearly break to make up the difference. Isaac Asimov
> wrote an interesting article on metric time in one of his Fantasy and Science
> Fiction magazine articles (I'd give a complete reference, but it's at home,
> and I'm at work :-)
> 
> Still, at least it's better than those that decide to develop a metric
> time system based around our existing definition of the second (yes, some
> people really are that dense!)

There was a proposal (first heard in Napoleonic times IIRC, but revisited since) that
we have a metric day:
	10 hours of
	100 minutes of
	100 seconds

So 1 day would have 100,000 seconds.
Under the current system 1 day has 86,400 seconds, so the definition of a second
would not have to change much.

This assumes that it is wise to have a unit of time measurement that is based on the
period of rotation of a lump of rock in space minus 4 minutes. You have to
subtract 4 minutes since the earth goes round the sun and:
	1440 / 365 = 3.94

But also under the current system you have an interesting relationship between
the number of degrees of earth's rotation and minutes. 1 Year ~= 6*60
which is why (I think) the Sumerians had a number system base 60.

Oh, lots of fun !

-- 
Alain Williams

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

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