Re: measuring systems (was: Selenites)

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> > Except, of course, if you have 10 months they'd presumably alternate 36 &
> > 37 days a piece which makes any subdivision into groups of 10 awkward.
> > Whichever way you go about it, it's difficult to decimalize 365.25 (approx)
> > days.
>
> Another reason is that 12 months divide up nicely into 4 seasons of 3
> months.  10 months divides into 4 seasons of 2.5 months.  Not very nice.
>
> > Yes, unlikely by that time.  I believe there was, infact, a proposal to
> > divide the day (i.e. from midnight to midnight) into 10ths, 100ths, 1000ths
> > etc.  It's quite feasible, of course.  But here the revolutionaries were up
> > against a tradition of more than 3000 years.
>
> And pure practicality.  Many buisnesses have 3 shifts for workers.  If
> you had 10 hours/day, you'd need an unweildy 3 hours, 33 minutes, 33-1/3
> seconds shift, or have one shift of 4 hours, and 2 of 3 hours.
> Measuring time has a great advantage if you can easily divide it up.
If the concern is with how many different ways you can evenly divide
time up,
why not use factorial numbers (1, 2, 6, 24, 120, 720, 5040, etc.)? Every
number from 1 to 5 divides into 120, so a 120 day year can be divided
into
half, thirds, quaters and fifths.

If a conculture has a particular tendency to use a certain set of
numbers,
it could divide time up based on units that are all those numbers
multiplied together (e.g. a conculture that uses 3, 5 and 7 might base
its
calendar on 105s).

> I once devised a measuring system for an imaginary group of people
> living in space.  Since there's no need to bother with orbital periods
> and the like, they retained the 24-hour day.  But, they grouped the days
> into 10-day units, 100-day units, and 1000-day units.  The 1000-day unit
> was the equivalent of a year.  I don't remember what I called those
> units, tho.  When recording a date, one would record 23.876 for the
> 877th day (begining at .000 for the first day) of the 24th "year"
> (begining at 0 for the first "year").  Below the day, the 24-hour,
> 60-minute, 60-second system remained.
Even on earth today, in modern society, there isn't an enormous need to
keep the calendar and seasons in check. Except in agriculture, no one
really cares if the seasons don't start at the same time each year.
And farmers could use tables or computers to work it out. A 360 day
year with no leap years would make life so much simpler.

As has already been mentioned, the Muslims get along fine with a
calendar that is often very out of sync with the seasons.

(Plus, it would mean that birthdays, anniversaries, etc. wouldn't
be stuck at the same time of year for your whole life).

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Simon Kissane