Why Don't We Have Metric Time? | Answers With Joe

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The metric system revolutionized the world and simplified how we measure things. But one part of our lives never quite got the metric treatment - time. The reason why highlights the importance of time on our lives.
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LINKS LINKS LINKS:
metricviews.org.uk/2007/07/16...
www.metricmetal.com/history-o...
ageofrevolutions.com/2019/06/...
www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180...
snippetsofparis.com/french-re...
www.britannica.com/topic/Greg...
www.quora.com/What-is-the-dif...
www.history.com/news/6-things...
www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...

[@dx1450]

In Europe, Miles Davis is known as Kilometers Davis.

[@josephburchanowski4636]

So wait. does that mean if I recommend the Robert Miles youtube channel on AI safety; I have to say Robert Kilometer instead?

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

Around the last third of the video, Joe also mistakenly uses the Imperial term for the obviously correct kilometerstone.

[@consideringorthodoxy5495]

@@davidanderson_surrey_bc I think i have seen two separate articles defending the imperial system for its literary importance.

[@PlanetEarth3141]

Kilometers didn't sell a single unit of jazz music.

[@dx1450]

@@PlanetEarth3141 You mean metric units or imperial units?

[@LittleBallOfPurr]

If we just made years half as long, we could double life expectancy

[@tommeakin1732]

You have a promising career in politics ahead of you

[@jacobfitz6872]

You must work at NASA

[@holidayfish]

if we just made hours half as long, we could have twice as much free time after work

[@whythelongface64]

@@holidayfish Capitalists: Write that down! Write that down! Edit: admittedly, it would double work hours too but hey... It's a joke, I shouldn't overthink it.

[@Rorydr_Tv]

Lol

[@robertsparks3685]

Some trivia on this topic that you might like: Clockwise is the direction that a shadow moves around a stick stuck upright in the ground in the northern hemisphere. The theoretical circle traced out by the shadow can be easily divided into 12 sections with a compass. But dividing a circle into 5 or ten is not nearly as easy. Cheers.

[@marcellkiss-redey8451]

Also: at solar noon, the sun shines from exactly south - hence, in Hungarian, the word for south and the word for noon is the same ("dél"), while the word for north ("észak") is similar to the word for night ("éjszaka").

[@tatianaes3354]

It is easier to split a circle into 8 parts rather than 12. The compass aid including, as there we have the north, east, south and west and four in-betweens. Or, if we like it so, we can split it even further into 16 parts.

[@Cvjkncfxcccfdd]

Base 12 is far superior to base 10. However, unfortunately, math uses base 10.

[@martaborkowska8168]

@@marcellkiss-redey8451 that's do cool! Its very similar in Polish, south means literally "noon" (same word for both) and north is "midnight"

[@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlsk]

Calling a 10 hour clock "metric" is stupid, because having it 10 hours means redefining how many minutes an hour has - or worse: redefining how long a second is. *For all intents and purposes, a 12/24 hour time **_is_** Metric time, because it's measuring time in seconds - an SI unit.* Making the 10/20 hours clock doesn't make it "metric"; that's just decimalization. The Metric system is not (strictly) all about decimalization. Edit: BTW, minutes, hours and days are considered "metric accepted".

[@TheB0sss]

About the whole Unix time thing you talked about around 15:00. I would say it's niche in the sense that a lot of people don't know about it. But Unix time is used in all of your devices, every single app on your phone. All of it is Unix time. I'd say it's by far the most commonly used time measurement right now. It's just that it displays it to us in human readable format

[@GH-oi2jf]

The clock in my truck has no external connection, so I doubt that is Unix time. More likely, it’s just a clock chip somewhere.

[@ericw.1620]

@@GH-oi2jf your ECU probably uses Unix time :)

[@ayushsharma8804]

​@@GH-oi2jfthey come synced to Unix time from the factory. All chips come synced with Unix time from the factory

[@TheSanpletext]

Was about to say this (I was only a year late). Epoch is FAR from niche, it's used in almost everywhere because it's standard and every language can convert it to HR time.

[@cleteblackwell1706]

It is exceedingly likely that you program your truck clock to a specific day and time and it stores it in seconds since 1/1/70.

[@robomatt101]

“The kilogram is shrinking” (Pulls out eyelash and sets it on top) “Fixed it!”

[@matheussanthiago9685]

''and who are you, who is so wise in the ways of science?''

[@palleppalsson]

@@matheussanthiago9685 a newt?

[@grandetaco4416]

what gets me about this thing losing weight, is it may have not been the weight itself that changed. It could be the magma flow in the earth. The height above sea level or the speed at which the earth spins or the mass of buildings added to the neighborhood near by. Weight is too relative.

[@mikalrage7316]

@@grandetaco4416 Don’t blame me! I voted to not change the Earth’s rotation speed.

[@sanityassassin8161]

The *eyelash* is shrinking! (When will it ever end!)

[@paulbland5625]

A funny thing happened on my way to work one day, many years ago. I worked in a clock making factory, owned by my father. One morning on my way to work, I was listening to the radio in my car, and the topic of metric time was the conversation. I must have come in to the show some time in the conversation. I heard, that we will have 20 hours per day, so many days per month and so on. I was on to this, and as soon as I arrived at work, with this new information ready to blurt out of my mouth in excitement. Dad was having a chat with the other workers, when all of a sudden, I expelled this new found information to the group. Dad, did you hear, that we are converting to metric time. We should jump on this straight away. We need to work out the gearing for the clock movements. Silence took over the room. A glare from my captive audience. Dad looking amused at what had just taken place, and calling me out for being an idiot. Do you know what day it is? Me, Dumb founded, Monday! Dad, it the 1st of April! April fools day! Me, red faced and about the size of a mouse.

[@dsdy1205]

and tomorrow you get to celebrate its anniversary!

[@olsmokey]

Some years ago I used to write articles for a music magazine and for one April edition I wrote about the new metric keyboard that had 10 notes per octave and even showed a picture of one of the new keyboards. I was amazed at the number of people who contacted me during that month after further details - people in the music industry who really should have known better.

[@krixpop]

"Dad looking amused at what had just taken place" thinking, ...I should have just tell her "honey, I too tired now... love you, 'night"

[@johntracy72]

That was a really good April Fools prank.

[@honderdzeventien]

@@olsmokey 10 notes per octave? You're cracking me up!! And they called for further details? LOL Did none of them ask why they wouldn't be called "dectaves"? I'd like to see that picture though, you made me curious

[@danejohannescaldwell7999]

One of the challenges of metric time is that it is inconvenient for shift work. You can divide 24 hours evenly into 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 parts, which works very well if you have 3 shifts (8 hours each) or 4 (6 hours each). Metric time can only be divided into 2 or 5 parts unless you use fractional hours.

[@ravensblade]

The only real problem is division by 3 and 6. Dividing by 4 and 8 is not a problem. It's as hard as dividing 10kg into 4 parts - it's simply 2,5kg.

[@arthurclement8656]

Well I would argue that in a perfect world we would count in base 12, but that would be hard to implement today

[@boggless2771]

hence the 12 inches in a foot. divisible by 2 3 4 6

[@ravensblade]

@@arthurclement8656 There is actually little gain of using base 12 over base 10. In base 12 there is problem when dividing by 5 (and 10) that are also common dividers. So you basically exchange one for another and there is no actual gain. You choose what you can write - 1/3 or 1/5. Base 30 would be the closest one with actual gain - additional prime divider. And that actually don't matter as in modern world for calculation we use computer swhich use base 2 - even worse (and probably the worst base system) as there is only 2 prime dividers and both 1/3 and 1/5 would result in infinite sequence of digits. And as seen above for actual mathematics there is no problem writing various fraction of 3 using base 10.

[@Nazuiko]

@@ravensblade ... but 1/5 of 12 is just 2.4. Thats still a finite, rational number. 1/3 of 10 is not rational or convenient. 1/5 of 16 is almost identical to 1/3 of 10; 3.2 vs 3.33333333333 except one is far more precise.

[@SolarWebsite]

I saw an interview once with the guy at Microsoft who led the team that kept track of the world's time zone's, DST dates, stuff like that, to make sure instances of MS Outlook all around the world agreed upon identical times and dates for a given appointment. I can't find the video anymore (it must have been 10+ years ago) but I remember him describing the nightmare this job essentially was. This team had to browse like Chinese regional newspapers to find out that some province would switch time zone to match a neighbouring province, or discover that Chile is going to change the date at which DST becomes active. Making mistakes, or missing such changes, meant Outlook users missing appointments. Outlook users not updating their Office software could mean the same. Surely an interesting but frustrating job, and one that will not have changed much. (if someone can find this video, if it's still up, please let me know! I'd love to rewatch it)

[@cleteblackwell1706]

Tom Scott did a video on why programmers hate time. Probably not the same video, but same concept.

[@lelandunruh7896]

Fun fact: China only has one time zone. But there are unofficial time zones some people use, so perhaps that was part of the problem.

[@Frolkinator]

"If you could not take it as a personal attack" So, i took that very personally, i feel quite attacked.

[@brechtstroobant9879]

*Angry comment to your comment*

[@crackedemerald4930]

I am angry too

[@ejoshuamc]

i know is silly, but i also feel a bit angry

[@bboutwell69]

@@brechtstroobant9879 angry comment to your angry comment. Wait. I forget which side I’m on. Nevermind

[@mikalrage7316]

Whatabout that comment YOU made that offended someone else on the internet?! “Double Standard Hypocrisy” must be your middle names! 😂🤣😂🤣

[@helanesteinmuller9279]

My dad was a watchmaker with a wicked sense of humour that belied his shy demeanour. When Australia adopted the metric system in 1974, my father joked with everyone at church that if they came in to his shop that week, he would give them 10% off their new metric watches. He was mortified when at least half the congregation turned up that week (including the pastor).🥴

[@crsmith6226]

Task failed successfully?

[@glen1arthur]

: ) hehe

[@azmanabdula]

"my father joked with everyone at church" Church goers are serious people *Perhaps the worst place to tell a joke*

[@austenhead5303]

@@azmanabdula Serious, highly gullible people.

[@azmanabdula]

@@austenhead5303 half half Either easily persuaded or are out to do just that

[@martian_yearz9412]

i appreciate the plug for "days sober", im 2 yrs clean off of heroin. I am currently in college at 30 and majoring in engineering and love your channel just a little bit more now Joe! Knowledge has truly changed my outlook on life and goals for my own. #spacefish

[@seanaugagnon6383]

Right there with you man. Off H for 15 months.

[@Nehmo]

So are you on methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone brand name), or are you completely clean?

[@Nehmo]

@@seanaugagnon6383 I'll give you the same question I gave Martian_Yearz. Are you on methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone brand name), or are you completely clean?

[@lijohnyoutube101]

@@Nehmo I think these questions just seek to demean others. What medications a team of medical staff has determined has or has not determined for them to be appropriate is zero of your business.

[@Nehmo]

@@lijohnyoutube101 This is a discussion about such drugs, and my question is relevant. I, personally, don't care, and, beyond the screen name, I don't even know who the person is.

[@wreckinball11]

Before age 50 I didn't think of time. Now it's my most valuable resource. I used to fix everything myself, now i pay others to use my time remaining wisely. The 2011 movie "In time" really hits home.

[@jerrylong381]

My father had a saying that says a lot about a persons work life. "Always remember that you are selling what you can't buy, and you don't know how much you have." I miss you Dad.

[@monad_tcp]

I realized that, and stopped having a job, better work for myself.

[@ncuco]

@@monad_tcp me too, now I do Crack instead

[@damonedwards1544]

@@ncuco This isn't a crack house, It's a crack home.

[@andie_pants]

I nominate "Kibble Balance" for the most adorably named scientific instrument.

[@midnight8341]

I don't need adorable, I have a Gene gun xD

[@lourias]

Kibble N Bits, nom, nom, nom.

[@graham1034]

Sounds like a product you need when your dog is on a diet.

[@sanityassassin8161]

Aren't "Kibble balances" used to weigh Tribbles? Or would that be too much trouble?

[@lourias]

@@sanityassassin8161 Tribbles, yes, I think you are quite correct!

[@DenUitvreter]

Here (NL) there was this guy once who went to the local 'people bring art to experts' show with a clock he believed was weird but rather well made. In turned out to be a French clock from just after the French revolution with the metric timescale applied. This was only a short period before the French went back. So the clock was very rare and woth about 150.000 euro.

[@rwstavros]

Time is based 60. That means it is divisible by 1,2,3,4,and 5. This means you can get finer resolution without decimals. It also means there are more places to introduce errors.

[@majorramsey3k]

Also by 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 & 30

[@rwstavros]

@@majorramsey3k yes, i only listed the prime numbers. Because we are so used to computers today, this is often overlooked. The imperial system also considers this. Ask to cut a 1 meter length of wood in thirds and it is harder than asking to take a 1 yard length of wood in thirds. In design, the rule of thirds is important.

[@majorramsey3k]

@@rwstavros I would imagine that's not an insignificant reason for the construction industry to stick with ft/in. Even in metricized countries like Canada, we use those all the time.

[@jasongreen1056]

I love that you called time “mile markers” in a metric video. Well played.

[@Ravi_Raj_Gupta]

Rest of the world: Milestones in life. US: hehehehe.

[@andreassundberg5636]

In scandinavia we use "mil" which is 10 kilometers. Its often wrongly translated into mile though which confuses everyone.

[@dctatt]

@@andreassundberg5636 In the US, a mil is 0.001 inches (or 25.4 micrometers). It's sometimes mistaken as an abbreviation of millimeter.

[@machalot]

@@andreassundberg5636 I learned about the mil by playing Digital Combat Sim and flying the AJS-37 Viggen module.

[@LarsRyeJeppesen]

@@andreassundberg5636 No we don't. Only swedes do that.

[@srsteck03]

"and France at the time was in a bit of a 'fixin' shit' mood" Lol

[@srsteck03]

@Todd Starbuck this Simpsons did an episode about everything

[@Joanna-il2ur]

When I was 15, we switched to decimal currency on 15 February 1971. As an April fools stunt, the local newspaper the Kentish Express ran a story that we were going to move also to decimal time. Each day would have ten hours, each hour ten minutes and each minute ten seconds. Not only did some people fall for it, many teachers wrote off for the imaginary info pack offered. Never trusted a teacher since.

[@CarthagoMike]

Fun fact about the Julian and Gregorian calender switch: In the Spanish Netherlands, different provinces adopted it at different times, but there was very vivid correspondence between cities in different provinces. This meant that letters (which were always dated and included the date of the last letter sent in case the previous one didn't arrive) could arrive before the 'written date', or even include two different dates.

[@Eugensson]

Another Trivia. Back in the 80s the city of Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia was using two timezones, depending on which bank of the river Ob where you located.

[@mrkitty777]

Handy for bookkeepers like Enron 😂

[@a2falcone]

Imagine your birthday always being on mondays in the Hanke-Herny calendar.

[@lePoMo]

Nice point. This may be the best reason against a metric calendar I have heard yet

[@Delgen1951]

the best and worst day of the week.

[@mammutMK2]

The weekend is getting closer

[@a2falcone]

@@mammutMK2 But so is on all the other work days.

[@NICEFINENEWROBOT]

@@a2falcone It's the change. The weekend is getting closer a g a i n.

[@JohnClay77]

The “In-No-Way-Will-That-Statement-Blow-Up-In-My-Face Cam” face was awesome!

[@flagmichael]

A view of the face before the Big Kaboom.

[@be_heard247]

I have always wondered why time and calenders were not more standard like just simply 30 days in a month or 100 minutes in an hour. Thank you for explaining! This would def not work 😅 lets keep it as is lol

[@lunam7249]

13:53 the correct calender was 28 days of 13 month....moon time😳😳😳

[@cptrikester2671]

This was/is excellent. I have wondered about this many years ago. Thanks for the clear summary. Your conclusions about time is food for more thought. 🙂

[@rafaeldiasdemoura7735]

“Let’s make a universal system for all people” *names months after seasons in the northern hemisphere*

[@LilliBellentor]

Wait, Europe ISN'T the universe???

[@joesterling4299]

@@LilliBellentor It was when Pope Gregory XIII was around. Or at least the part of the world that mattered on a global scale.

[@mikalrage7316]

@@LilliBellentor - Well, it was until a little thing called USA happened. Fun fact; it was in that instantaneous shift of the Universe from Europe to USA without any intermediary position that we discovered the Quantum State. Ironically, the Quantum State is still just a Territory with no actual power or voting rights, because lawmakers at the time couldn’t be sure that it would vote exclusively for their party, so they thought it was best to just prevent it from having any representation at all. And that’s how a Bill becomes a Law of Thermodynamics.

[@jasonlast7091]

@@mikalrage7316 And this has been commenting on Salvia.

[@mikalrage7316]

@@jasonlast7091 The Salvia Uncertainty Principality.

[@ryanm7263]

The frustrating thing about time is that it keeps slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future.

[@irw4350]

the best answer on here

[@lybri5490]

I dare anyone to read that and not sing it too

[@ChristopherRolls]

Time is the past.

[@kv3g]

Well so just fly like an eagle. problem solved.

[@davej9228]

Careful ,that might be a copyright infringement.

[@rjbobrobertson]

Beautifully stated. Time IS precious!! Thanks Joe

[@Lord_Skeptic]

3:19 we British use imperial as well. Well if you want to more precise we actually use a hybrid.

[@tomweale9763]

"France was in a kinda fixing its shit mood" is my new favourite quote 😂

[@hurri7720]

I have been hoping the British would finally do it too, one can hope.

[@tuckergary1516]

yes, he is a closeted comedian.

[@puellanivis]

I was actually working in some software dev work at my university during the year 2000. I actually had to fix a bug in some code, because it had the every 4, except every 100, but not the except every 400. It wasn’t a big code change, and was pretty easy, but it did require me to read and understand all about leap year maths.

[@jeffwells1255]

I must be a genius by comparison to most programmers during the Y2K problem, because my software planned for it starting around 1980 and I just laughed at all the fools who didn't think of it from the beginning!

[@ibnorml]

A point of trivia: When the IBM PC came out, IBM designed the computer clock circuit to work the same as their mainframe computers, so they chose to start their PC clock on Jan 1, 1900. 1900 was not a leap year, making the circuitry in the chip more complicated. When Apple produced their first computers, they designed their clock circuitry to start on January 1, 1904. This meant that the circuitry was simpler and cheaper, because every 4 years from 1904 through 2096 are leap years. If your old Mac is still working during year 2100, it will not be able to display Feb 29, 2100 correctly (unless Apple fixes it via software). And that is also why Microsoft Excel for the PC starts at date 1/1/1900 and Microsoft Excel for the Mac starts at date 1/1/1904.

[@ibnorml]

@@jeffwells1255 Just a point, the Y2K problem was created by two things: 1) RAM and storage space was EXTREMELY expensive back when computers were first made, and programmers spent an extreme amount of time optimising programs to take up the least amount of RAM and space, and to run on the least amount of CPU cycles in order to to save money (back then, computer processing was MUCH MORE expensive than labor costs), and 2) most of these programs were not expected to still be in use in the year 2000.

[@mac_lak]

@@ibnorml You forgot also to say that customers often complained about having 4 digits for the year, while they were used to use only two when handwriting... Also, most displays were pure text displays (i.e. fixed number of characters on screen, often 80x25 or 80x50 characters). Same for printers, very often limited to 80 characters wide, sometimes 120 when using "condensed" fonts. Therefore, "wasting" (irony inside...) 2 columns for an "useless" information was considered as a bad thing to do. But the digits, printed with graphical dots using TrueType fonts and followed by a currency symbol, located at the botton of the numerous Y2K bills changed this mentality A LOT. Hopefully, the Y10k won't be a thing, but we may laugh a lot in 2038 (only 17 years left!) when 32 bits Unix timestamps will reach their limit and loop back to 1970 *_OR_* 1902, depending how negative numbers are dealed... 😁

[@teleroel]

@@mac_lak I've worked with software where they took out the century again, maybe even just where the year was visible, just because people wanted the old format back. These people probably still use the old green terminals...

[@chriskaprys]

I love your balance of intellect, sass and uplifting sincerity. 👍

[@Freddie_Dunning-Kruger_Jr.]

sassincerity

[@SomewhatAbnormal]

I didn’t watch this video until today and yet somehow I had an almost verbatim conversation about the preciousness of time in my head the other morning. So much a match that I had to watch it twice because I thought I imagined what you said.

[@christophertstone]

6:26 Marie Antoinette never said anything like "let them eat cake", and was a pretty darn nice person considering her upbringing. Her last words were apologizing to the executioner for stepping on his foot. I highly recommend taking a hour to lookup her story sometime, pretty interesting even at a high level.

[@ScotHarkins]

And she had a pair of Converse sneakers. Couldn't have been all bad!

[@scottclowe]

"Let them eat cake" was literally fake news, yet it is a meme that persists to this day. Much like people thinking Napoleon was short.

[@tara5742]

I didn’t know that! According to 23and Me, I’m in her Maternal Haplo Group. Is it bad that I’m more interested in learning about her because I’m supposedly related to her XD

[@ScotHarkins]

@@tara5742 knowledge for its own sake is good. Knowledge that expands on what you know about your life is perfectly natural.

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

@@tara5742 Congratulations! Just a reminder to be extra careful around meat slicers and Slap Chop products.

[@Zorgongola]

Hi Joe, I've been a subscriber with you for while now, it's great to see you mention the Kibble balance mainly because I was part of the team that worked on it from 1991 to 2000 under the guidance of Bryan Kibble. Our main focus for years was in eliminating noise from the experiment, not just acoustic, but also electromagnetic and thermal, the level of precision was incredible. This was at the National Physical Laboratory in England, the same place that Barnes Wallace developed the bouncing bomb during WW2 , and where packet switching was invented. Thank you for including it here.

[@leifjenkinson4039]

It is so cool to hear this from you. Thanks!

[@gonnfishy2987]

I love your delivery and manner. Refreshing.

[@stephenhoughton632]

I think it is also important to realize that as useful as decimalization is, there is also use to base twelve and base twenty, which the earlier systems included. Think of the number of gains in an ounce, 480. That is evenly divisible by 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 8, etc.

[@arthurcrown3063]

Troy ounce 480 (gold etc), Avoir ounce (normal use) 437.5

[@patavinity1262]

"They started it in September of our Gregorian calendar because... I don't know why" Well it would have been easy enough to find out. It's because the Republic was declared on the 22nd of September 1792, which became Year I of the Era of Liberty. All French dates were therefore traced back to that point.

[@joescott]

Told you I was lazy.

[@verrios4825]

@@joescott I feel you

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

And that's why it didn't work -- France was expecting the rest of the world (read: Europe and the Americas) to switch over to a calendar based on an event in French history. Zut alors!

[@patavinity1262]

@@davidanderson_surrey_bc No, I don't think they expected that. I'm not sure they even introduced it in the Sister Republics they established in Europe.

[@Nikolas_Davis]

Yeah, that's the autumnal equinox. It's one out of the 4 most natural dates to start the year. That it coincides with the Declaration of the Republic was a happy coincidence.

[@Applemangh]

I always thought it was because 12 is so conveniently divisible, so you can split the time on a clock into a lot of different sized chunks for scheduling, without breaking into individual hours. And when you do have to break apart hours 60 (a multiple of 12) can also be neatly subdivisided based on need.

[@PhilipKaskela]

Base 12 makes a lot more sense than base 10, except that we have ten fingers. Otherwise, I bet we would have evolved to use it for everything, including the metric system (a gross meter vs centimeter)

[@1985ThePedro]

@@PhilipKaskela The issue though with base 12 is that it doesn't convert well into the standard Arabic numerals system that is used all over the world (because that's a base-10 setup). Now the old Sumerian system of base-60 definitely had significant advantages for complex mathematics, but it seems that asking modern man to memorize a base-60 system is a bit much. For some reason.

[@19Szabolcs91]

12 is such a nice convenient number, being divisible by 3 and 4. We kinda sorta counted some things in a base-12 system, I mean we still use the word "a dozen", meaning of 12 of something. And in many languages (including English) we have unique words for 11 and 12.

[@ssokolow]

@@1985ThePedro Babylonian cuneiform numbering didn't simply have 60 symbols. It was more like Hangul in that each digit was composed from smaller marks. Here's what Wikipedia's Sexagesimal page has to say about it: "The sexagesimal system as used in ancient Mesopotamia was not a pure base-60 system, in the sense that it did not use 60 distinct symbols for its digits. Instead, the cuneiform digits used ten as a sub-base in the fashion of a sign-value notation: a sexagesimal digit was composed of a group of narrow, wedge-shaped marks representing units up to nine and a group of wide, wedge-shaped marks representing up to five tens. The value of the digit was the sum of the values of its component parts:" "Numbers larger than 59 were indicated by multiple symbol blocks of this form in place value notation."

[@1985ThePedro]

@@ssokolow That's a good point. It isn't that it was exactly a base-60 system when you were only considering numbers below 60, but more that if you had a larger value you would end up with less places than in the Arabic Numeral system commonly used today. The Arabic Numeral system is also far superior to the Roman Numeral system for most number. Even though a number like 10 takes two digits for Arabic but only 1 symbol for Roman, most numbers in between become pretty labor intensive. And the math is also often labor intensive, even though it can be done by someone who is less mathematically literate. The Babylonian system, with a value of 60 in each place, is even less labor intensive than the Arabic system, but does require a slightly more advanced literacy in mathematics to solve without excessive labor. All that aside, variations of Roman Numerals (tally marks, which actually are precursors to Roman and not necessarily a variation) are probably the best method for keeping a running tally of a grouping. It's thought that RN evolved as a way of managing larger sets of these tally marks, and that the disposition of symbols to subtract from a value vs add to a value was a later feature.

[@inkgun3993]

I have always asked this question, and never found time to find out. Thank you

[@DanielLavedoniodeLima_DLL]

The idea of days of the week being counted in order kind of happens in Brazil and Portugal (and I believe that for other Portuguese speaking countries too): Sunday = Domingo Monday = 2ª-feira Tuesday = 3ª-feira Wednesday = 4ª-feira Thursday = 5ª-feira Friday = 6ª-feira Saturday = Sábado

[@csolisr]

I'm surprised to see that Portugal didn't push for Sunday's to be Primera Feira

[@allejandrodavid5222]

​@@csolisrand it was, but they've changed and Domingo means "Lord's Day"

[@Nazuiko]

Lord's Day, 2nd-6th, and the Sabbath? I like that system

[@csolisr]

@@Nazuiko I wonder if Portuguese agnostic people stick to "1ª-feira" and "7ª-feira" regardless.

[@detritus23]

Also, traditionally when a new king was enthroned, the units of length were restandardized. Thus, restandardizing a measurement system after a revolution made a certain sense.

[@shadowcween7890]

should've made it dozenal rather than decimal

[@graham1034]

@@shadowcween7890 I'd be cool with a binary system or hexadecimal. Baring those choices then dozenal is a good one though. Of course we'd probably want to change our daily math system for clarity.

[@detritus23]

@@shadowcween7890 I think you meant “the dodecimal system.”

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

You'd think that after removing a bad king from power, instead of removing his head, you'd remove his feet. Then he'd have to suffer the rest of his life watching his kingdom operate according to his successor's foot-length. Especially humiliating if that foot was noticeably longer -- wink wink.

[@allangibson2408]

France didn’t have a national standard for weights and measures until the metric system came in.

[@WilliumBobCole]

"we don't tend to think about how our time is our most limited resource" My existential dread tends to disagree

[@annoyed707]

I never gave it a second (of) thought.

[@sodinc]

it killed my mood quickly

[@texasgonzo67]

Killer presence and delivery Joe.. you're an absolute natural. Love the side cam for sarcasm... haha. 1st vid = SUBBED. Rock on mahn

[@THall-vi8cp]

Time is measured in the old Babylonian base 60 math system. They charted the rotation of the earth by observing the motion of stars and the general progression of the zodiac. This same system is used today in angular measurement. The metric system works because it was incorporated into an already existing largely base 10 math system. I say largely because Geometry uses some of the old Babylonian system. What I find pretty cool is that we are able to use the current base 10 and the old base 60 system together.

[@lunam7249]

1 wize comment among thousands!!!😳😳😳👏👏❤️🥇....let me illuminate further....the pendulum 1 meter length (metric) clock is a standard clock, and then it was counted 86400 seconds later was COINCIDENTALLY 1 day..... the correct calender is 13 months of 28 days...a womens clock.😳😳

[@GntlTch]

It's actually not too surprising. If you examine the symbols (and hence the math), used for the base 60 system it is actually a mash up of a base 6 system with a base 10 subsystem using different symbols for the two bases. To be more specific, they used one symbol to count to 5 and another to count to 9. There was no symbol for zero. BTW, The Sumerians invented the base 60 system some 5000 years ago which was then later used by the Babylonians. Wikipedia and Google are your friends for further info. Search for Sexagesimal+sumerian

A small mistake: meter was never defined as 1/1 000 000 of distance from pole to equator, you are missing one zero, 1/10 000 000 would be correct ratio.

[@DidivsIvlianvs]

Was just going to post that. (amateur astronomer) I wonder how many of the first 2600 comments are on this error? Not going to scroll further though.

[@themadpsyentist4633]

Pretty sure there's another mistake, the energy of a kilogram must of been with 10 to the 34 power as 10 to the -34 power makes no sense.

[@Aniqa101]

@@themadpsyentist4633 Which still is false because E = m·c², therefore E/m = c² = 9.0 × 10^16 J/kg.

[@prjndigo]

Yeah, about that. A meter is the side of a cube of a mass of fresh water that weights the same as the average mass of a nautical ton which varies a little bit because any given localized 35 cubic feet of sea water may weigh slightly different amounts. The "ton" was already an international standard of displacement and to be accepted the metric ton had to literally be the same mass on a balance scale. Its kinda like how all shipping containers are actually based on the 24 or 48 foot size because of the international pallet standards and that the dominant accepting markets were still using feet. So the metric system is literally based off the foot.

[@dlevi67]

@@prjndigo Um, no.

[@M1stersupersonic8]

Just a small correction, here's the actual quote by Benjamin Franklin: "And what an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow to lie down in Peace on the second of this month and not perhaps awake till the morning of the fourteenth."

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

You get my thumb up just for doing the homework.

[@glowwstixx]

You are so good at what you do. Cheers

[@lifeid.healthpreviousconte7705]

Awsome job. You speak in a personal menner. Thats wonderful

[@howdyhamster]

There was the watch company Swatch, which created .beat time in 1998 dividing the day into 1000 beats. There were no time zones, and the day was based on the time in Biel, Switzerland. One of the few applications to implement it was the video game Phantasy Star Online, with in-game clocks and timers being set to it. For example, you could feed your "mag" (robotic pet) every 2 beats, though players usually just said 3 minutes. It also eliminated the need for international groups of players to convert time zones.

[@sterlingodeaghaidh5086]

Other games like Club Penguin back in the day did similar things, creating their own universal time for their games.

[@vinapocalypse]

Thank you, I'm surprised he didn't mention .beat time since it was so recent, even though it was more of a marketing campaign

[@MrVasile]

"Don't take it personally"? "I'm too lazy"?! Sheesh! I tell ya. Give some people a centimeter and they take a kilometer! ;)

[@Kay_McKay]

This pleases me.

[@josephelijah1211]

😑 it's not the same

[@b.6603]

That segment about Napoleon tho, it could reeeally use some metric subtitles. Outside the US it's just impossible to understand. Also, hot tip for pronunciation: put it in google translate and use the speaker button. The attempts at guessing the pronunciation are funny tho. Hahaha.

[@KaiseruSoze]

umm no. It's 2.54 cm and they'll take 0.62 kilometer.

[@joebushnell143]

Ha ha ha ha....

[@kauffner]

The American system of measurement is called "customary units". It is based on the Adams report of 1821. The Imperial System is defined by the British Weights and Measures Act 1824. Both systems are derived from the earlier Westminster system created by Queen Elizabeth I in 1588.

[@feedingravens]

60 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, so is pretty practical when you have no calculator. And with 360 you have even 8 and 9, so all numbers from 1-9 except 7.

[@nikolatasev4948]

This reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books "Once second is defined as 1/100,000 of a solar day on Home. One meter is defined as 1/300,000,000 of a light second One gravity is defined as 10 meters per second squared acceleration. The Emperor has decreed that the speed of light shall remain as nature has provided." It always cracks me up how generous the Emperor was not overriding the physical constants. Anyway, the book is Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld, great hard Sci-fi.

[@alpharivelino]

"Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time" -Jorge Luis Borges

[@destrygriffith3972]

LOVED the subtle, not-hammily-pointed-out word fun with "time" toward the end. But was that a subtle upping of the volume at the transition to your ad spot? Made me aware enough to want - despite enough curiosity for a rare indulgence - to stop listening and come here and (hopefully not too condescendingly) comment. Good on ya, at least, for leaving the ad for the end - that habit, now that I think about it, I very much appreciate.

[@mrcryptozoic817]

Joe, I always look for your new postings. You prove science and near science can be interesting and thought provoking. Well done sir! Computers are different because you can code anything as long as you make up for it with a correction at the computer time of output. For example: SAS (computer language) counts dates from Jan 1, 1960). Dates before that are negative; after that are positive dates. (Probably because Cobol was invented (dreamed up?) early in that decade.

[@thunderwazp7653]

The only redeeming quality about Monday’s is that weeks Joe Scott video

[@Hat-]

Agreed

[@artdonovandesign]

I listen for that Monday/"New Joe" notification starting at 6:00am

[@tomc4132]

Watch the bad friends podcast then. Expand yourself.

[@LivingWithSpinaBifida]

Achievement Hunter puts out a GTA video so theres that

[@name1483]

And last week tonight 😂

[@ljmz79]

I had to google the height of Napoleon because I just got confused about the measurements in different feet and metric was not mentioned. He was 1,68m if anyone is interested.

[@dickbutt7854]

Not short

[@ljmz79]

@@dickbutt7854 Still clearly shorter than me. 😄 And I'm not tall either.

[@Galatzo]

That's exactly 9 croissants tall in the old french system

[@mrkitty777]

Napoleon wasn't a natural born French I heard.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

"He was 1,68m if anyone is interested." But if anyone is NOT interested, he was 3.5m.

[@davidbeppler3032]

Not sure how I missed this video. Glad I got to see it now!

[@NITE_PINE]

I used a time clock years ago that broke an hour up into 100 parts, while also displaying the normal 60 minutes as well.

[@wiblet]

kibble balance is actually what you achieve when you shake your cat's half full bowl to convince them there's still food in it

[@ThreenaddiesRexMegistus]

Below 70% denotes official emptiness, or if the bottom of the bowl is partially visible regardless of the residual column height. Similarly the “favourite” food you have just purchased in bulk is immediately rendered inedible by proximity to more of the same and in direct proportion to convenience.

[@MK-of7qw]

Brilliant 😺

[@dsdy1205]

@@ThreenaddiesRexMegistus So apparently I've recently read that this could be because your bowl is too small - if a cat's whiskers touch the bowl it can give them sensory overload which can be annoying / painful. So it's a lot better if the food is in the center of a very wide bowl.

[@michaelbeatie]

"October the 4th would always be a Wednesday." Fantastic. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's song "You saw my blinker" would forever be accurate when you listen to it... On your raycon ear buds.

[@tonyb83]

Very good, thankyou.

[@orion6able]

I tried decimal time for a watch, and honestly I absolutely love it! I can think of things in terms of percents. I can take really nice measurements of daylight and how long I sleep and when things happen! 1/2 = 50% 1/3 ≈ 33%, 1/4 = 25%, stuff i know well in decimal. Its been so nice! Im not sure how we ever lived with 24 hours a day 60 minutes... Etc. Especially when decimal seconds are a little faster, you get a finer measurement with them. ahh, im too lazy to switch back! Its just too nice.

[@charlesgantz5865]

A little trivia. As you mentioned, the meter was defined originally as "one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator", which was actually measured from Dunkirk to Barcelona. The commission to measure that distance was signed by Louis XVI on the morning of the day the mob attacked Versailles and took Louis prisoner. Also, it turned out that the measurements were wrong, which they tried to correct a few times. But by that time someone had put the scratches on the platinum bars. They didn't want to erase the scratches, so they ignored the measurements and just went by the scratches.

[@martijnspruit]

The group land surveyors left Paris to go out and start measuring, but they actually had great difficulty getting out of the city gates, since their pass had royal seals on it, and the guards were of the "new regime" (non royalist). If the head of the group who took the measurements would not have been persuasive enough, the group would not have been able to start measuring at all.

[@gustavosantiago1543]

What? But they already knew earth's circumpherence, didn't they? why bother measuring it again?

[@franznarf]

@@gustavosantiago1543 1st NO 2nd useless question

[@gustavosantiago1543]

@@franznarf Really? I thought the greek had already figured it out

[@robinsuj]

@@gustavosantiago1543 Probably not with enough precision?

[@Wesley_H]

You wanna know the biggest difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars? In the Julian calendar, when your solstices and equinoxes don’t quite line up, you like to move it, move it.

[@samrooney2958]

Noooooo. *flashback*

[@otherssingpuree1779]

I have been using decimal time for a long time now, changing days does not make sense but time does.

[@Geordie504]

FYI: RISC is pronounced “risk”, VAX VMS is pronounced “Vacks V.M.S”. Just for fun, ASCII is pronounced “askey”.

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

Judging by your photo, I'd say we both come from the era when everybody associated with the computer industry knew those things like a second language. Remember COBOL, Fortran, Basic, and Assembler? I was fluent in all of them. Now I don't even know WHAT they use for programming any more, much less how to code that way.

[@PlanetEarth3141]

All correct.

[@captainnerd6452]

@@davidanderson_surrey_bc We're a vanishing breed.

[@christopherneelyakagoattmo6078]

Yeah. Two or three years ago some friends were talking about some new programming for Python. And I thought there was a new Spamalot play. Or John Cleese had signed a deal with some new streaming platform named Perl.

[@matchrocket1702]

@@christopherneelyakagoattmo6078 I use Linux and my repository is loaded with Python and Perl utilities and applications.

[@yershov]

That's very interesting, thank you. One of the factors was because the clocks and watches were cutting edge high tech back then. You could force people to change the scales and rulers but time devices were much more expensive. And it's not just adding metric marks on the inch ruler. You have to re-engineer and rebuild the clock from scratch.

[@garethbarnett6389]

Thank-you for saying days sober. You're a good man. 👍

[@paavobergmann4920]

For some time, I liked looking up weird units of measurement during lunch break ( it started with me, european, trying to figure out how much liquid there was in a small airline can of soda that held 2 3/4 fl.oz. Turns out that´s not that easy...I didn´t know if it was an american or british can...and a fluid ounce has not much to do with the weight of an ounce, either...my head melted. My all-time favourite: Ne. It´s the thickness of woolen yarn. A yarn has a thickness of 1Ne, if a spool holding 740 yards weighs 1 british pound. There you go. Close number 2: 1 Eimer ( 1 bucket). That could be anything between 2 litres and 60 litres, depending on where and when you were in germany.

[@mellissadalby1402]

OK, I might be sick and sad and twisted, but your sense of humor amuses me.

[@foxpup]

Join the club. Most of us are sick, sad, and twisted. We were all born that way. Just ask the theologian Calvin. Some of us, through grace, do end up improving from that baseline, however. :-)

[@clinkers]

yes

[@LuccaGasser]

Had to scroll pretty far down to find a Member, shouldn't it boost you guys straight to the top? just sayin'...

[@ThrottleKitty]

Kibble Balance sounds like something the guy at Petsmart would use to sell me 4 different kinds of dogfood

[@RBRT02]

Spring should start together with the new year.

[@zappababe8577]

In Birmingham, UK in between the town hall and the art gallery there are old fashioned units of length actually made of metal and embedded in the pavement. Check it out the very next time you're in Brum!

[@Oi....]

We do decimilise time, when we measure less than a second..

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

Get this: The millihour. Equals 3.6 seconds.

[@mppauling]

It took me 1 and 1/2 seconds to read that.... whoops.

[@Oi....]

@@mppauling 1.5 seconds

[@mppauling]

@@Oi.... really...

[@Oi....]

@@aloismahdal8831 I know it's spelt wrong, but I like it.

[@wissamelkadamani9750]

Joe the number you said has the number of joules in a kg is actually Planck's constant. The number of joules in a kilogram by E=mc² is much much much much more than a fraction of a fraction of a joule. Got that thing wrong buddy

[@DJRY360]

C squared has that effect on things

[@GregorBotttz]

He's only off by a magnitude of 50.

[@DJRY360]

@@GregorBotttz astronomers be like "not bad!"

[@mirandawilde5681]

The kilgram was tied to Planck's constant (h) by defining h to be exactly that number in kg m^2 / s. Since the meter and the second are already defined by c and Cs ocillations, this gives us a fundamental kg.

[@duaneeitzen1025]

One kilogram (kg) of mass is equivalent to exactly 89,875,517,873,681,764 joules

[@henryhawthorn8849]

I’m a big fan of the SI units of measurements, or French for the “System International de Unites”, (the official name for the metric system), but I think it’s best to keep the 24 hours in a day that we have because, unlike a decimal time system, we can divide the day into equal portion divisible by 3s, 6s, 9s, and 12s. With a decimal system the equivalent of someone working 8 hours would be 3 hours, 33 minutes, and 33.333… seconds going into infinity. It’s more flexible and convenient under the 24 hour system to divide the day - that’s the only reason I’m opposed to decimal time. Although I prefer the use of the 24 hour clock, and getting rid off the awkward 12 hour clock with AM and PM. Right now is 1308 hours, instead of 1:08 PM. I’ve changed my car’s clock, as well as my cellphone, and Apple Watch to 24 hours - I got used of the 24 hour system since I was active duty in the Navy. I never get confused as to whether the hour is meant to be AM or PM.

[@YellowRambler]

Interesting subject I haven’t thought about in a long time, it nice to know I’m not the only one that waited my time thinking about it. The other thing that bothered me was the names of the days of the week and names of the months, they should all be alphabetical in order and no starting letter of a name should repeat, so no Saturday, Sunday, June, July, January, Thursday, Tuesday.

[@lynnmccurdythehdmmrc2561]

Speaking of anniversaries. Coming up on one year of Quarantine, or celebrating a year of Covid. One year we'll never get back.

[@craigh5236]

On the plus side I now have shoulder length fabulous hair.

[@mhigg9045]

@@justinbouchard ...good advice...maybe you should follow it...

[@MrEscape314]

Just like every other year of our lives that we'll never get back..

[@michaeloosthuizen2383]

I always use Unix Epoch time for applications I architect. A timestamp is the exact same time everywhere on the planet and doesn't get changed with daylight saving shifts. That means it can be delivered to a client device and converted to a human readable time based on the preferences of that specific client device. It's very useful.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

Until 19 January 2038 when the epoch ends.

[@AraliciaMoran]

@@thomasmaughan4798 That date is the limit for the 32-bit (signed) integer. We've been progressively switching to 64-bits for the past 2 decades, and this also apply to time representation. Most OS have already switched to using a 64-bit integer for storing the epoch; and the same apply to the now common and recommended file storage systems; Databases are on the same page, with the most common now handling epoch timestamps way past 2038. While some old programs and formats will probably break at that time, it's most probably not going to be a big deal.

[@InYourDreams-Andia]

I wondered about metric time a lot. Now, I know what's what, thanks to your very precise explanation. And a fantastic French pronunciation! ^_^

[@darylcheshire1618]

There used to be the Imperial Standard Yard which was grooves in two gold pegs in a bronze bar kept in the Board of Trade which unfortunately burnt down.

[@HomeGunMaker]

“Physical objects change. Atoms decay, elements react.” When my mom complains I haven’t stayed the same weight I’ll have something to argue.

[@HomeGunMaker]

@@remingtonsmooth1417 try telling her that and staying alive lol

[@firstclaw1]

I wonder if the kilogram material simply lost so many atoms or molecules due to some kind of decay, or if gravity causing the mass having a measurable weight has changed.

[@Frisbieinstein]

Electrons, neutrinos, and protons don't decay.

[@urmorph]

@@Frisbieinstein But they can be annihilated if smashed in the face by someone of the opposite persuasion.

[@flitzsdomingos]

Can we just appreciate the fact that you tried to tell things in French with a Spanish accent xD

[@danieljensen2626]

He's from Texas, Spanish is probably the only foreign language he hears regularly

[@flitzsdomingos]

@@danieljensen2626 Ah that's why thanks

[@igorfrancapereira4888]

@@danieljensen2626 Maybe I'm wrong but I think that mostly in the US they only know Spanish as a foreign language. I don't know if in the northern states, near the Canadian border mainly towards Quebec, maybe in those places they can identify French but I really don't know haha. What I do know is that almost every American I've ever talked to when I say I live in Brazil they always say I speak Spanish and obviously that makes me a little angry haha, Portuguese is only spoken by almost 300 million people it must be really unusual lol.

[@martijnspruit]

@@igorfrancapereira4888 In Louisiana, there's still a number of people who speak French daily. And Spanish is the first (and sometimes the only) language for over 15 percent of the population in the USA, mostly in Texas in Southern California, which borders on Mexico. And I'm not even mentioning all the languages of the indigenous peoples in the USA, or all the languages brought there by immigrants who still use theirs within their communities, like Italian, Russian, Chinese, or even Yiddish. In fact, the USA has no official language (as in: codified by a national law.)

[@Rechtauch]

As a Spaniard living in a French-speaking country and married to a French guy, I confirm that trying Spanish accent makers the pronunciation more accurate than if he tried the English one. Also, this is an absolutely natural mechanism for people who speak more than one language: when you learn a third one, you apply to that one the accent of the second language (the one that you identify as "foreign"). I have French accent in German and Dutch, which is just ridiculous and confusing 😕

[@Wholestain]

We should use a subtracting clock: so much time left 'till the next day, next weekend, next appointment....It might make you more aware of both the 'time being gone forever' and limited.

[@undercoverduck]

KZbin reading my mind I was wondering about this exact thing a few days ago

[@UBI_NOW]

actually Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake" yes, even then, they had fake news I would put a link but I don't feel like it look it up peace

[@mikalrage7316]

Her birthday parties were a total cake tease.

[@paulmitchell4421]

Perhaps something was lost-or added-in translation... no doubt, Marie Antoinette was not speaking English.

[@michaeldmingo1525]

They were making up all sorts of stuff as an excuse to be Revolting. The winners write all the history. Just makes it sound like the bad guys were the good guys.

[@germansnowman]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

[@gelatinocyte6270]

@@michaeldmingo1525 I don't think they were _making up excuse to revolt._ The country was badly run *and the general population was starving.* You would claim a bunch of absurd shit when your stomach's empty.

[@octapc]

You know time is precious when a song is played that takes you back emotionally to when you were a teen as if it was only yesterday, but you are now 60+

[@yimmy7160]

for the new it is only 20 years

[@YodaWhat]

"If I could keep time in a bottle".

[@CoreyFrang]

My friend used to describe short times in millifortnights (~20minutes)

[@willdwyer6782]

For payroll accounting purposes, minutes and seconds are expressed as decimal fractions of hours, usually rounded off at two decimal places to make it easy to calculate hourly wages to roughly 30 second precision.

[@optimeus]

This, also in connection with the loss of time due to the uniqueness of transience: Lying on your deathbed it cannot be otherwise that you are overwhelmed by a great feeling of loss and regret. Only your "past" contribution to this world can compensate for this. So nothing to worry about for you, Joe Scott, you will be remembered.

[@ybungalobill]

Talks about Unix time or FILETIME -- the way time's represented in almost all digital systems -- "those are niche applications"!?

[@jonathanozik5442]

How many bits would we need to count nanoseconds in an integer from 0000-00-00 00:00:00 and not run out for the next few centuries? :)

[@ybungalobill]

@@jonathanozik5442 64 bits can count nanoseconds over a span of millennium. 85 bits will get you all the way to the age of the universe. For the record, struct timespec used on most unix systems for nano-second precision is 96 bits long.

[@lorenznolfi368]

167.64 cm is 5.6 foot. Just for people outside the US. In Vietnam the week starts on Sunday, as described in this special calendar. The weekdays are called day 1 (which is Sunday), day 2, day 3 up to day 7, which is Saturday.

[@punt0028]

When the metric system was introduced in Australia, in 1970 (or thereabouts) I remember a radio station announcer told people, as a joke, they would have to replace their clocks to the new metric clocks... one person in particular I remember had just recently purchased an expensive wrist watch. He took it back to the store and demanded they replace it with a new metric watch! ( I don't recall what happened after that)

[@skeptic1000]

Most people never notice that Sept-Dec are named after 7-10 in Latin, since those were the seventh - tenth months until we added July and August to honor some kings.

[@blockyhour4224]

we couldve added them after december lol

[@Foxtrek_64]

July is named after Gaius Julius Caesar and August is named after Caesar Augustus (the first Roman emperor).

[@skeptic1000]

@@Foxtrek_64 yes, my some "some kings" phrasing was highly sarcastic

[@axokm97]

It’s literally in the video that the change from julian to gregorian made the start of the year in January instead of March, which accounts for the mismatch in month names

[@dtvjho]

Actually the Julian calendar used systematic names for months 5 and 6, before being renamed for emperors. The original Latin names were Quintilis and Sextilis, and if those names had survived, we could have Quintober and Sextember on our summer calendars! Even today's politicians monkey with time zones every few years. By the sun, each zone should be 15 degrees wide (360 / 24), with straight borders from pole to pole, but look at a time zone map of the world and you'll see the carnage.

[@coryjorgensen4648]

To me, the biggest drawback of metric time is that you can't conveniently divide a day into fractional units other than 2 or 5. Imagine being the lord of a keep, or the skipper of a war frigate, and needing to set a watch rotation. You either have to have 5 shifts or 2 shifts, or else set partial hours, which defeats the purpose. 24 hours works much better, the more so even today with many more needs for shift work, when you can divide the day into 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 equal parts.

[@denjo3131]

Honestly, this isn't really a problem once you use a complete metric system. This is the same excuse as I often hear for measurements, it's easier to split something in 12 parts... With metric system you can easily convert to smaller units. For example instead of 0,6 = 6 dm; 0,6 dm = 6 cm; 0,6 cm = 6 mm; 0,6 mm = µm; 0,6 µm = 6 nm... 1 m divide by 40 is too difficult? convert it to mm: 1000 mm / 40 = 25 mm A day could be 100.000 seconds or 100 kiloseconds (or if you change it to 1.000.000 seconds: one megasecond), and have the same duration as now if you adjust the duration of a second (but here's the biggest problem why we don't change it, all are technologies are simply based on our current seconds). And the prefixes aren't hard to learn: they are the same for everything. It's just the way of thinking that needs to be changed. There is a reason why we work with seconds in more advanced maths, and not hours and days.

[@thebestwes777]

@@denjo3131 Converting between units is always going to be slightly more complicated than not converting. At the end of the day, measurement systems should make things easier, not harder. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[@OptimusPhillip]

This is exactly why the Babylonians handled time the way they did. They used a base-60 counting system, which gave them a lot of really nice numbers to work with, including multiples of 12. So to them, 24 hours in a day was a round number, in the same way that a 25-cent coin is a convenient subdivision of the dollar.

[@OptimusPhillip]

@@denjo3131 That doesn't solve everything. For example, how do you write a third of a meter? 333 millimeters is too small, so is 333 333 micrometers, so is 333 333 333 nanometers, and so on and so forth. No matter how finely you subdivide the meter, the third-meter will never have a nice representation in metric units.

[@ictogon]

Which is why we should use base 12 or base 60 instead of base 10. But it would be literally impossible to switch our number base unless we started like a small space colony or something.

[@NeoTechni]

You left out: -Swatch Beats - they divided the day into 1000 beats -Stardates from Star Trek - They divided the year into 1000, relative to a specific date (41 years before the start of Star Trek: TNG)

[@ixchelssong]

I worked somewhere, right after graduation, where time was measured in units of 3 minutes. Everything on our time reports, and the clock we punched in on, was in in multiples of 3 minutes.

[@Sol3UK]

I'm English and was taught both imperial and metric, I still use a combination of both and so do our shops.

[@eddymaes9620]

Lieven Scheire explained the metric system and how stupid the imperial system is in 3 minutes. watch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHjImnqMq7uFeLs