Metric Time, as is oh so cleverly softlinked to this node, will
never happen. That said, let's run through a brief explanation of it.
Metric Time (abbreviated
MT) is the
Base 10 alternative to plain, old,
Base 60 Anglo-Babylonian timekeeping that we all *know* and love. (abbreviated
ABT)
LMT is short for Local Metric
Time, which is offset for whichever
time zone you happen to be in.
UMT is short for Universal Metric Time, equivalent to what would be
GMT in ABT time.
Here's the most common system of Metric Time, first used during the
French Revolution:
10 days in a metric week
100 metric
seconds in a metric
minute
100 metric
minutes in a metric
hour
10 metric
hours in a
day
Sounds pretty simple and metricky, huh? Well this has a big problem. Dividing the metric
day into 10 different slices makes a metric
hour last about 2.5 ABT hours. You can't make metric hour-long TV programs or schedule a metric hour-long appointment. You'll only fit a few of them in per day! People would have to resort to using clumsier prefixes to divide their schedules into - a
centiday for example (approx. 14.4 ABT minutes)
Now, the following is a more real-world system using the
day (equal to one solar day) as the
base unit.
deciday(dd) = 1/10 day (Metric hour)
centiday(cd) = 1/100 day
milliday(md) = 1/1000 day (Metric minute)
microday(µd) = 1/1000000 day (Metric decisecond)
etc...
How is Metric Time formatted?
00.0 LMT = 12:00 midnight ABT, local
50.0 LMT = 12:00 noon ABT, local
00.0 UMT = 12:00 noon ABT, GMT
50.0 UMT = 12:00 midnight ABT, GMT
50.000 LMT = 12:00:00 noon ABT, local
02.425 LMT = 12:34:56AM ABT, local
Note that the trailing
zeros are never dropped.
How do I convert from ABT to Metric time?
MT = ((s/86400)+(m/1440)+(h/ 24))*10x
Where X is what unit you are solving for:
Days x=0
Decidays x=1
Centidays x=2
Millidays x=3
Quintoday x=5
Microdays x=6
How do I convert from Metric time to ABT?
h = abs(d * 24)
m = abs(((d * 24) - h) * 60)
s = abs(((((d * 24) - h) * 60) - m) * 60)
Then, ABT = h : m : s
How do I convice my friends, relatives, and coworkers to start using Metric Time?
You don't.
I
pine for the day (Metric of course) when my watch will display
atomic,
binary,
metric time. :)