[Ubuntu-l10n-eng] Time

[Ben Goodger]

On 09/09/06, Toby Smithe <toby.smithe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 2006-09-09 at 22:30 +0100, Ben Goodger wrote:
> > On 09/09/06, Toby Smithe <toby.smithe at gmail.com> wrote:
> >         It's more a ratio than it is a decimal, though.
> >
> > It should be decimal. Stupid 60-worshipping ancient people...
>
> Two points:
> 1. Why must it be base 10 to not be stupid?


Because of the same reason we don't use base-12 measurements, base-16
weights, base-12&20 currency and so on.

2. It's not a decimal, and that's not going to change any time soon.
> Under the International System of Units, the second is currently defined
> as the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding
> to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state
> of the caesium-133 atom. This definition refers to a caesium atom at
> rest at a temperature of 0 K. This will never change.


This is only because caesium-133 decays at a rate of 9,192,631,770 periods
per second. The second itself is arbitrary. It could easily be simply 1/1000
of a day (1/100 of an hour, which is 1/10 of a day) in a similar manner to a
millimetre being 1/1000 of a metre (1/10 of a centimetre.) Why the hell not,
except for the old argument "we've done it this way for a very long time"
that has quashed both the metric system in America and Esperanto worldwide,
and many other things besides, no doubt.

-- 
Ben Goodger
#391382
---------------------

Mi admiras religiajn; ili estas fine ebliĝinta solvi la maljunegan demandon
"kiel oni povas vivi sencerbe?".
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