On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 12:56:44 -0800 (PST) Ethan Dicks
<ethan_dicks_at_yahoo.com> writes:
> --- Tony Eros <tony.eros_at_machm.org> wrote:
> > Yeah, let's get rid of all those stupid non-metric
> > measurements. Especially those pesky units of time. I mean, what
> idiot
> > came up with "seconds", "minutes" and "hours", anyway? The
> "hours" even
> > repeat twice every "day" -- how stupid is that!
>
> Hopefully this is meant humorously. The second _is_ a metric unit
> of time, even though minutes/hours/etc are not reckoned in decimal
> intervals.
Actually, this idea of 'metric' time is nothing new. There exists
watches from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, whose dials read
*ten* hours, divided up into 100 minutes of 100 seconds each.
Most of these came from France, as a government decree made them
necessary, as per this quote from:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rkeulen/watch/metric.html
"During the Revolution, the French tried to reenforce the 12 months/
360 days - year, using a decimal timescale, adding 5 days of festivities
at the end of the year. A day consisted of 10 hours of 100 minutes.
Minutes were devided in 100 seconds. 10 days made a "week", called a
"dekade". There were 30 days in a month. The republican calendar was
not a succes and lasted only from 1793 till 1805."
It appears that 'metric' timekeepers (and timekeeping) were unpopular
even in their own day. (Aren't you glad?)
OB Classic (to keep this even remotely n topic):
The Jacquard Loom was developed at the end of this period, the worlds
first programable piece of manufacturing equipment. (Perhaps those
9-day work-dekades were beginning to piss him off . . . .).
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Received on Mon Mar 05 2001 - 16:19:57 GMT