Tuesday, June 22, 2010

If we only now started to measure time

If we only got around to measuring time in today's world, it would probably be measured in metric form of some sort. How long would a second last? The same as now? Or shorter, or longer? Would it change our conception of an instant? Would it be ten or a hundred seconds per hour? How many hours per day?

Would we be in a ten day working week? How many days off would be standard in that? Maybe three? Would three days weekend followed by seven days of work be better or worse than what we have now? What would the days of the week be called? Would they be boringly labelled as One, Two, etc?

Maybe there would only be ten months in the year? Would that play havoc with our notion of seasons? Maybe it shows how far removed we are from nature, if it did work like that?

However, the world can't be made to fit a system we come up with. Ever 4 years there's that extra day to add on - and no system could account for a quarter of a day. Some stuff was made up so we can organise ourselves and each other, but days and years exist, regardless of whether we pay them attention or not! And seeing as humanity seem to have a desire to measure everything and then create standardised measurements of everything, perhaps this is a good thing!

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