yes surprised you'd not mentioned beat time. You can buy a watch even.

While we're at it, although it's hard to get around 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds for each lap around the sun, we could be more sensible in dividing the year up. 10 months of 36 days, plus five holidays? Or 5x36, 5x37? Of which ten rest days a month? Dunno that one a bit harder.

Wil B: "... it's hard to get around 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds for each lap around the sun ...". We could always slow the rotation of the planet, to give us 100 days per year - or speed it up, for 1,000. But we'd still have the rest of the universe to contend with.

Will B,

To be pedantic,
The Earth makes one lap around the Sun every 366!/4 rotations of the Earth on its axis.

For an observer on Earth the lap itself looks like a single rotation about the axis in the opposite direction .So there appear to be 365!/4 rotations (days ) in a year ,

Degrees are for plebs. Real men use radians :p

I believe they're related -- blame the Babylonians and their sexagesimal (base 60) counting system, circa some 4-5 thousand years ago. Amazing to think that our geometrical and temporal calculations are done with an ancient system designed to track stars. Carl Sagan would have put it more poetically I'm sure.

Perhaps we should just adopt the computer time system known as "epoch time", which is arbitrarily defined as the number of seconds since midnight on Jan 1, 1970. Initially it may feel unintuititve to give a passing stranger the time as "1353371189 seconds", but think of how much better our mental arithmetic will be after the initial few years of chaos and societal collapse. Also, on every power of ten increase, you'll have an excuse to buy a new watch to hold the new longer number (nb this would have worked well in the early 70s; not so much now.)

You'll never get rid of pi; it's just the ratio of circumference to diameter. However, you can vaccinate yourself against it by enrolling in a lengthy humanities course.

Navigation is governed by degrees, minutes and seconds of latitude and longitude. A nautical mile is, going by my impaired memory, the equivalent of a minute of longitude. Therefore we have knots which are nautical miles per hour. This helps in easily fixing your position on the earths surface.

Thank you I was becoming so frustrated with this entire conversation.

Nice

Why not stop using space and time as discrete contiuums considering physics seems to think they're actually spacetime?
i.e. combine the year with the maximum (earth centric) spatial measurements as the maxi-unit for space time

Current System
365+n days in a year...Time divided by day units
Really roughly, earth is spherical (360long 360lat)
Landscapes have altitudes, this and latitude seems to be related to perception of time etc but let's not get too finicky
Earth on axis of (correct me) 25degree, effects which bit of earth is closer to sun etc
space and time treated separately with much confusion and not exactly in line with the laws of physics and human need
western time systems use silly concepts like BC and AD which are a little bit too christian centric for current era and generally inaccurate.

New System (rough idea)

A year or 1 Orbit Plus N

1 rotation of sun is still a year. But it has a grace/stretch period, which may be considered an international festival, and replaces leap years
-One year or Rotation of sun defined as from when the furthest point of the earth (as per the axis and longitude, probably some corner of the poles) reaches the same point on the orbital plane it did at the start of measurement.
- the +n is the grace period that is the difference between the above measurement and the same kind of measurement for the inner point of the earth doing the same thing (probably some equatorial bulge)
- i.e. a year is the larger period of orbital time less the difference with the shorter period of orbital time (large space and time is a year)

A month
- how long it takes for a full moon to appear at the same long/lat referenced for the larger orbital distance used to measure a year, and then at the same long/lat used to measure smaller orbital distance
- how many times does this occur in 1 Orbit Plus N? This is the divisor used to measure how many months are in a year

A day
- begins at the point on the earth closest to the sun (smallest orbital distance) when sunrise occurs and a halfday is when sunrise occurs at the longest orbital distance (same points i keep mentioning) ie Hour 0 = Hour 18 (see blow)
- it only varies by longitude. A day is divided into 360 units. There are no time zones but these.

An hour
- decimal. There are 36 "hours" in a day. This makes time zones easier to manage. What's your longitude? that's your time. Country etc, doesn't matter.

A minute
- divided by the practicality of life. Working in units of 8 hours currently (8/8/8 rule of thumb) divide the hour by 8, and that's a minute. 36/8 is whatever...

A second
only matters if you're getting really technical and thats probably when computers than can calculate fractions can be used and so it doesn't actually matter that much at all for everyday purposes

It seems to me that we lose something when we simplify. There were difficulties with currency in pounds, shillings and pence; as there were with imperial measures. Dealing with those complexities exercised minds.

Without the complexities, our minds get less exercise. People these days seem less capable with even moderately complex mathematics. Consequential?

Maybe I'm just getting old.

Stuart,

In proposing to substitute a day of ten newhours for a day of two sets of 12 hours, have you considered the method of measuring and displaying of time of day - the clock or watch. Looking around retailers I could not find a single watch using a digital display. This tells me that the customers want analogue diplays and prefer a two pointer read out for its resolution or precision.
So with ten hours in a day how are you going to layout the dial to give a reolution of 1/86400 day or say 1/100 milliday

First, you would mark 10 equal divisions on the dial and label the top mark "noon" the bottom mark "Midnight " and number the remaining marks 1 to 4 and 6 to 9 .Each of the hour divisions would next be subdivided into ten.. Four hands are then required, one turning daily resolving 10 milldays , the next turning 10 times as fast to resolve 1milliday using the same marks and the third turning 10 times faster again to resolve 0.1millidays and the fourth to resolve.0.01millidays. There would be no display of seconds. (1/86400 of a day) and no means of showing how many seconds elapsed between events.
If the hands are to be coaxial,how would you build a reverted gear train to do the job.
The Egyptians and Babylonians knew what the were doing.

Tim Scanlon,

I don't think it is a very polite way to address older people by saying 1. We must wait for them to die and 2. "those people still "infest the planet". I think the word infest would be better reserved for use in talking about people who have no genuine manners.

Judging by the number of young people who can only relate to a baby's weight in pounds and ounces, I'd say the time of the imperial measures generation dying off is gigadays away!

Tim Scanlon: "... we have to wait for the older generation, who still insist on using imperial measurements, to die off ...". Young people these days; no respect for their elders. Harrumph!

In my experience, it's feeble minds that demand simplification. Flexibility benefits better minds; roll on the rise of dozenal to replace decimal.
http://www.dozenal.org/
http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/dozenal/index.php?title=Main_Page

Would that be the olde rgeneration that knows:

the distinction between a positional notation system and a set of measurement standards or units of measurement and the prefered multiple and submultiples

that in SI the unit of elapsed time is the second, and its preferred ternary decimal multiples and sub multiples;

that the second as a unit is shared by SI and the previous systems of units FPS MKS and CGS
;that hour day and year are acceptablle bot not preferred units of time in SI

That not withstanding the definition of the second in terms of a wavelength of light, the fundamental definition is still a submultiple of the intertropic year.

That the division of the day into periods of three hours comes from the desire early monastic Christians (Tellurian ?) to regulate their hours of prayer.

That the second is so named because it is the second division (secundus) of the hour by sixty, the minute being the first division, and dates from about mid C15th..

and that the division of the day into two sets of 12 equal length hours has beeen around for a very long time but was only formalised in the late Middle Ages.It probably arises from the Egyptians and the methods avaiable to construct angles (in a geometrical sense) Starting with a 3;4:5 right angle or a 111 eqilateral triangle..

Michael Glass: "... let's just drop the u from color, flavor and the rest." It has been said that problems generally result from previous solutions; you've pointed out one of them.

In this case, America's solution creates problems for every other Anglophone community.

Peter, I can assure you that our irregular spelling is a real problem. It means that it takes children twice as long to learn to read and write. That's an enormous waste of time and effort. English spelt phonetically would still be English.

Michael Glass: "English spelt phonetically would still be English." Until pronunciation changed, as it has and continues to do. Come to think of it, which of the many accents would you choose, on which to base your phonetic spelling?

The complexity of English reflects its history. Attempts at simplification are like a dog chasing its tail. Every simplification is just another complication waiting to bite us.

Peter,

Why is our spelling so irrational in the first place? Loadsa reasons, but change in pronunciation since the spelling was frozen is one of them.

Why is knight spelled with the 'k'? Because we used to pronounce the 'k', that's why.

If you change the spelling to some standard (Received Pronunciation maybe), who is going to both define and enforce this? English is still lucky enough to be about the only significant language not to have one of those ridiculous language institutes or academy things, full of self righteous language thugs determined to hammer the speech into their preferred mold. Besides, who is gunna set one up? Will we take any notice of a British or American body? Will the yanks take any notice if the Commonwealth, or a subset thereof, sets one up?

Besides, what happens in the event of another Great Vowel Shift? Spelling becomes stuffed all over again.

Me, I quite like the idea that my great grandkids be able to read what the past provided us, without learning a whole new (old) set of spellings.

Michael Glass: David Box all, Chris Harper, and John Harland touched upon issues that I saw, and raised a few extra. Thank you gentlemen.

I cannot resist: Oh, what a night! And: Oh, what a Knight! Obviously have very different meanings.

Then isn’t education all about learning how to learn, especially at the time that kids are learning to read? It is rather like why teach tables and mental arithmetic when most everybody has a calculator or two integrated in something that they are carrying. It is surely just a waste of time, except that I would be lost without it.

Stripping the origin of words from language would, in my view, strip the language of nuance, reduce the shades of meaning, the subtly of expression which English provides. Poor pronunciation, carelessness and a poor education can have the effect of having different words sounding the same, while the joy of a good speaker is to hear the subtle inflections of the language properly pronounced.

Spelling reform? Nothing new under the sun.

I suspect most of you have read this at some stage or another in your lives. Me? I think I was about ten.

http://www.angelfire.com/va3/timshenk/codes/meihem.html

A real problem that plagues the world - actually, ask a tradie. Measurements to build stuff = metric. Manufacturing companies for drill bits etc = American = imperial. Close enough? Depends on the situation, given appropriate circumstance the inaccurate shorthand conversion of 2.5cm = 1 inch could kill and probably has.

Uhm....language though.Not used to this new commenting system...ok well someone was saying about how spelling and annunciation need not be the same thing. True. But a finer point about English is that we don't speak it here anyway. We speak varieties of Australian and there are more than one. It's neither US or British English and it keeps changing. Here's a small example

Back in the 80s in Sydney schoolkids used to have devon and tomato sauce sandwiches. In Broken Hill and Adelaide they had fritz and tomato sauce sandwiches, maybe even with some cabana. But if you went to the US or even Melbourne, people would not know these are exactly the same thing, and that we're actually talking about bologna, which is often, but not always pronounced "baloney" and is probably not to be confused with "blarney"

If we don't even talk exactly the same on this continent....sheesh...it must be confusing for NESB migrants. Who are probably taught US or UK English, only to find that no one speaks that here, except migrants from those countries. Then pile all that into a classroom with antiquated spelling and grammatical rules that confuse articulate fluent authors. Come again? When you look at the language and how it is used (in any of the dialects) it makes no logical sense. Old joke = pineapple which is neither from a pine tree or a kind of apple. Come again?

Michael Glass: "When it comes to reform, people commonly overstate the difficulty." When it comes to language, I think you're understating it. Short of black helicopters and commandos with sub machine-guns to enforce approved pronunciations, how would you deal with variations? Ate, pronounced 'et', and dance, pronounced 'darnce', come to mind.

Would each regional dialect have its own phonetic spelling? Think of Julia Gillards accent, which I gather is a regional dialect restricted to Elizabeth South Australia.

Language is more difficult to standardise than measurement. In comparison, replacing decimal with dozenal would be a doddle.

I would also point out that even if a single standardised accent were selected, spelling reform using the latin alphabet wouldn't work anyway. There are simply too many variant morphemes and phonemes for 26 letters to adequately cover them all.

It's not gunna work anyway.

John,
Why do you say that the Metric Conversion Board was autocratic and heavy handed?
At the time, I did not agree that the conversion to SI units was necessary or desirable, except that it provided an opportunty to rationalize the size ranges of manufactued items. (That didn't happen.) .and to get rid of specally named decimalmultiples and submultipes of base units , such as tex and kaiser and parsec and so on (that didn't happen either)
The way we went about Metric conversion was driven by companies and people whose investment in the system of units. was , in the end run,insignificant. Jobbing shops doing repairs and modifications didn't get a say.

The availability of SI metric fasteners and screw cutting tackle was a problem because the suppliers were not in the loop .The average hardware supermarket manager knew nothing about metric fasteners. To the jobbers, Metric conversion meant more expense on taps and dies and tools/ machinery with lead screws and change gears.

Mind you, I was able to buy nuts and bolts with ISO metric threads at thirty years ago. Buying items that met the Australian Standard for dimensions and strength was another matter.

In my own workshop I carried for example, taps and dies from 12BA to 1/2x26 Cycle thread through BSW BSF ANF ANC UNF .ISO metric was gradually added but I still use them all.

John,

As I recall, the Metric Conversion Board had no power to fine people. That was up to the State weights and measuers authority.

I broadly agree with your other remarks. I was on the MCB aeronatical industry sector committee and was not very pleased with the way it ran.

didn't think there wa any legal requirement to manufacture replacement parts to other than the original standard. Those bleed screws were sized so that a ring spanner could be slipped back over the bleed tube. They were a special. Perhaps they ran out of stock.