What do you think?

You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

-1 points

This feels like an April fools joke.

Ridiculous concept. If you can’t do the math, get an app or ask an adult.

permalink
report
reply
-6 points

Nature isn’t base 10. Why must we try to make it so?

permalink
report
reply
9 points

What does it have to do with nature though?

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

The day being divided into 24 hours is just as arbitrary as 10 though is it not?

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points
*

Well, yes and no.

In geometry, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 180 degrees are all important, commonly occurring angles. They can be represented as 1/24, 1/12, 1/8, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 of a circle. Trying to represent these angles on a 10-degree circle, most would have infinitely repeating decimals, which would make math involving them extraordinarily ugly and complicated. You can’t represent the angles of an equilateral triangle without repeating decimals. (1/6 of a circle, or 1.667 “degrees”) You can’t even represent the angles of a square without a fractional part. (1/4 of a circle, or 2.5 “degrees”)

Dividing the circle into 360 degrees gives us numbers that are simpler and cleaner to use in base-10 mathematics. The 360-degree circle is a layer of abstraction for eliminating repeating decimals when referring to these common angles. Decimal is such a pain in the ass in geometry that stacking a sexagesimal layer between the unit circle and the number system was the most feasible way to do it.

A base-12 number system would not need such an abstraction. On a 12-degree circle, these common angles would be 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, and 6 degrees. A 24-degree circle (12-degree half-circle) would allow us to represent each of these with no radix point (the “decimal point” in a non-decimal number system)

Basically, if we had evolved with 6 fingers on each hand instead of 5, mathematics would be far more elegant. We would have needed to memorize a completely different multiplication table with two additional digits. On this table, 3 * 4 = “10” instead of 12, 6 * 2 =“10” instead of 12, and 2 * 3 * 4 * 6 = “100” instead of 144. The duodecimal expansions of π, e, √2, and other irrational constants would be different, but the concepts would be consistent.

An alien who grew up doing base-12 math would look at our base-10 system like we would look at the poor bastards who used a base-7 number system.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Holy shit that’s an informative reply. Wow, thanks.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-6 points

The metric system brain-worms run deep.

permalink
report
reply
37 points

As someone who has written a ridiculous amount of code that deals with date and time, I support this 100%.

permalink
report
reply
28 points

Great! Now you’ll not only need to convert between timezones but also between metric and standard time.

Also the respective intervals adjusted by leap days and leap seconds will be different!

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Why settle for 24 when you can have a hundred fractions?

permalink
report
reply

Damn, that's interesting!

!damnthatsinteresting@lemmy.ml

Create post
  1. No clickbait
  2. No Racism and Hate speech
  3. No Imgur Gallery Links
  4. No Infographics
  5. Moderator Discretion
  6. Repost Guidelines
  7. No videos over 15 minutes long
  8. No “Photoshopped” posts
  9. Image w/ text posts must be sourced in comments

Community stats

  • 357

    Monthly active users

  • 123

    Posts

  • 776

    Comments

Community moderators