Metric Time
A new metric
The imperial system is bad. Just as bad is the Babylonian numbering scheme, based on 12 and 60.
Let's get rid of it!
Metric time
A day is now 100 000 ticks longThese are not the second diminuiton of a time unit, so they shouldn't be called seconds.. They're named rather whimsically for the ticking of a clock, which shall be set to metric time. This means that one tick is exactly 0,864 babylonian seconds long (we will call these "seconds" from now), and one second is exactly 1.157407 ticks long.
There is no need for further time units.
Well, but humans are time-bound creatures, so they need some ways of referring to common lengths of time.
100 ticks make up a "hec"like, in a hectotick, which corresponds to 86.4 seconds, or about 1.5 minutes. Good enough, your eggs will now be 2.8 hec eggs, or if you can accept a slightly different arbitrary choiceand we know that you do, since 4-minute-eggs are just as arbitrary as 4.32-minute-eggs, 3 hec eggs, which we shall colloquially call 3 heggs.
1000 ticks make up a "k"like, a kilotick, which corresponds to 14.4 minutes. That also means that 4k are about one hour. What a nice fortuity, let us rejoice!
Finally, 10k are exactly 2 hours and 24 minutes, which is one tenth of a day. Delicious!
"How long is this going to take?" -- "About two and a half k."
Perfectly normal and understandable!
Oh, and one more thing: one Megatick is exactly 10 days. One year is exactly 36.5Mt.
Leap ticks
There is one very serious issue we must discuss: leap ticks. Currently, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service mandates leap seconds to keep the UTC time zone and the astronomically observed solar time in synchronization. Even though leap seconds are a great source of entertainment
"Since 2008, instead of applying leap seconds to our servers using clock steps, we have "smeared" the extra second across the hours before and after each leap. The leap smear applies to all Google services, including all our APIs. [...] Many organizations use smeared clocks, and it would be helpful if the smears were the same. After all, the purpose of clocks is to read the same time in different places.
We encourage anyone smearing leap seconds to use a 24-hour linear smear from noon to noon UTC."
https://developers.google.com/time/smear
, we will not continue this practice. It is of no relevance to keep metric time aligned to solar time, so no leap ticks will ever occur.
Time zones
Let us solve the next inane problem of humanity: time zones. We don't need those any more. In fact, we wouldn't even need to mark days any more (and we'll get back to that), but for the sake of tradition, let's make any arbitrary choice and select one global time zone that works for everyone.
The 180th meridian is one of the meridians with the sparsest population, so we will slice our days along that line. It is also conveniently close to the current international date line, so we won't have to change too many things. On exactly sidereal midnight, at January 1st 2021, at that meridian a new day shall startFor the technically minded: The tick epoch is at 1609419780000. We'll count the ticks of that day globally and refer to dates and times by that number only. There is only one arrow of time, no need to refer to it by literally dozens of different conventionsAnd before you get started, if your office wants you in the office 4k earlier in the day during certain date ranges, just arrange that instead of telling everyone to change their clocks!.
To make this easier to visualize, here's a handy conversion chart:
| Time in NYC | Metric Time in NYC | Time in Berlin | Metric Time in Berlin | Time in Tokyo | Metric Time in Tokyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:03 | 00,000 | 15:03 | 00,000 | 22:03 | 00,000 |
| 10:03 | 04,167 | 16:03 | 04,167 | 23:03 | 04,167 |
| 11:03 | 08,333 | 17:03 | 08,333 | 00:03 | 08,333 |
| 12:03 | 12,500 | 18:03 | 12,500 | 01:03 | 12,500 |
| 13:03 | 16,667 | 19:03 | 16,667 | 02:03 | 16,667 |
| 14:03 | 20,833 | 10:03 | 20,833 | 03:03 | 20,833 |
| 15:03 | 25,000 | 21:03 | 25,000 | 04:03 | 25,000 |
| 16:03 | 29,167 | 22:03 | 29,167 | 05:03 | 29,167 |
| 17:03 | 33,333 | 23:03 | 33,333 | 06:03 | 33,333 |
| 18:03 | 37,500 | 00:03 | 37,500 | 07:03 | 37,500 |
| 19:03 | 41,667 | 01:03 | 41,667 | 08:03 | 41,667 |
| 20:03 | 45,833 | 02:03 | 45,833 | 09:03 | 45,833 |
| 21:03 | 50,000 | 03:03 | 50,000 | 10:03 | 50,000 |
| 22:03 | 54,167 | 04:03 | 54,167 | 11:03 | 54,167 |
| 23:03 | 58,333 | 05:03 | 58,333 | 12:03 | 58,333 |
| 00:03 | 62,500 | 06:03 | 62,500 | 13:03 | 62,500 |
| 01:03 | 66,667 | 07:03 | 66,667 | 14:03 | 66,667 |
| 02:03 | 70,833 | 08:03 | 70,833 | 15:03 | 70,833 |
| 03:03 | 75,000 | 09:03 | 75,000 | 16:03 | 75,000 |
| 04:03 | 79,167 | 10:03 | 79,167 | 17:03 | 79,167 |
| 05:03 | 83,333 | 11:03 | 83,333 | 18:03 | 83,333 |
| 06:03 | 87,500 | 12:03 | 87,500 | 19:03 | 87,500 |
| 07:03 | 91,667 | 13:03 | 91,667 | 20:03 | 91,667 |
| 08:03 | 95,833 | 14:03 | 95,833 | 21:03 | 95,833 |
| 09:03 | 00,000 | 15:03 | 00,000 | 22:03 | 00,000 |
I think you can see in this chart that metric time is much better. Also shown here is common time notation, which will be the same world-wide: exactly two digits, one comma, then three digits.
"Our very serious business meeting is at 10:00 o'clock." -- "BUT WHICH TIME ZONE"
vs.
"Our great and fun meeting is at 25k." -- "I am so glad that everything is so easy and I am looking forward to it very much."
Oh yes, much better!
Speeds
Of course, speeds also change. All speeds shall henceforth be measured in m/t, meters per tick. Here is a handy table of common velocities.
| ticks | seconds | meters | m/t | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 m/s | 1.157 | 1 | 1 | 0.864 |
| 0.864 m/s | 1 | 0.864 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 km/h | 4167 | 3600 | 10000 | 2.4 |
| 30 km/h | 4167 | 3600 | 30000 | 7.2 |
| 50 km/h | 4167 | 3600 | 50000 | 12 |
| 70 km/h | 4167 | 3600 | 70000 | 16.8 |
| 100 km/h | 4167 | 3600 | 100000 | 24 |
| Mach 1 | 1.157 | 1 | 343 | 296.352 |
| c | 1.157 | 1 | 299792458 | 259020683.712 |
One interesting thing here is the speed of lightYes, of course, anchoring time in relation to the speed of light would be even better. But, well, what can I say, I just like our quaint humanness, which is why I anchored time to the length of a perceived day.. The (almost) precise value is 259020683.712 m/t. If you can accept an error of 0.3%, you can say 260 Mm/t (Megameters per tick). Or, if that error is too large, for an error of 0.008 % you can go with 259 Mm/t, which is much better than saying 300 000 km/s, because that's an error of 0.07%.
For driving, it's probably best to measure in dm/t, decimeters per tick. Going an even 310 dm/t is a great number for driving on the highway, and you should definitely not go over 120 in cities.
Yes. Very convenient!
The calendar
While we're at it, that silly system of unequal months, named by and after long-dead Roman emperors should also go away. Let's do something better!
We want to make sure that there are work and rest intervals, ideally in the current ratio of 5:2. Unfortunately, 365 = 5 * 73, so there are no great factors that work here. But 364 = 7 * 4 * 13, so that would work out to 13 months of four weeks each (or rather, 13 months of 2.8Mt each) -- and one additional day. Good enough, so we'll do it like this:
The year is divided into 13 equal months, each with exactly 28 days, made up of 4 weeks of seven days. Each year, each month and each week starts on a Monday. The weekdays are named like they are today. The months are called Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Quarternary, Kwintary, Zextary, Heptary, Octary, Novary, Adecary, Bundecary, Codecary and Dekatria. You might find these names weird, but they are chosen so that each month starts with a different letterAlso, we Bowdlerized a reference to human intercourse, which seems to be necessary to not run afoul of the puritan morality police.. The months are numbered: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D.
All dates are written in the correct order, which is year-month-day, so for example today would be 2021-7-05, Christmas Eve would be on 2021-D-22. If you must, you can omit the year, then you'd write 7-05 or D-22. This is impossible to misread. The month is always a single digit, while the day is always two digits. No more of that ambiguous 3/4 or 4/3 nonsenseBy the way, the best day of the year is 6-28. Not only is this τ day, but it's also almost in the middle of the year, which cleverly points to its significance as the day of the circle radius number. The actual middle of the year is obviously on 7-14 50,000!
Finally, the last day of the year. Or is it the first day of the year, as some people would have you believe? NO, none of that childish confusion, the last day of the year shall be known as Star dayIt is named for our home star, Star, because that is the reason we need Star day. If we were just a tiny fraction closer to our star, we wouldn't need it. Please refer to my follow-up project "Changing Earths Solar radius" for more information on the subject., its date is E-00 and it is a worldwide public holiday. It shall be ignored when calculating anything regarding dates, like rent, income, tax, interest, or duration of vacations.
Every four years, there will be a second star day after the first star day. This date will be known as E-01, it will be called Asterisk day and also be a worldwide public holiday and so on. Such a year will be called a leap year.
Except, every 100 years there will not be an Asterisk day.
Except, every 400 years there will be an Asterisk day.
Except, every 2000 years there will not be an Asterisk day.
This gives us an average duration of the year of 365.2420 days, which should be good enough for everyoneAn equally exact method of keeping the calendar year roughly in sync with the sidereal year would be to add 485 leap days every 2000 years. However, our method keeps local distortions much smaller, so it is the preferred method.. All of this is an entirely reasonable and useful scheme in the long run, and also very important for teachers of computer science, so that everyone shall learn conditionals.
Finally, to make the transition easier for the common person, we will anchor our arbitarily chosen year to be the same as the current year. That is, 2021-1-01 is the same day as January 1st, 2021 of the Gregorian calendarThis anchoring is quite fortuitous. It will keep the start dates of the year in sync until the year 4000, which will be a metric leap year, but not a Gregorian leap year. It can be assumed that all important people (ie. me) are well past caring by that date..
Moon-based calendars
If your calendar is moon-based, or you have some weird moon-based festivity planning going on, I really can't help you things aren't complicated: simply figure out your astrological functions and substitute proper dates for Gregorian calendar dates.
It is done
Sure, these are some pretty drastic changes. But it should be obvious to everyone by now that they are for the better. We do not expect that implementation and final acceptance in the general populace will take more than a dozen Megaticks, at most!
Now that the most pressing problem of humanity is solved, come back for the next issues in which I will solve the simpler problems, such as world hunger, border disputes and economy.