Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Why aren't minutes metric?
Topic Started: Oct 4 2008, 04:42 PM (348 Views)
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Hey, everything is made up and agreed with.
All those funny countries agree on grams, liters and meters.
America agrees on pounds, gallons and feet.

Why don't the funny countries have 100 seconds in a minute and 100 minutes in an hour?

The day is physical; it is about one rotation of the earth.
The year is physical; it is about one trip of the earth around the sun.
The month is physical, sort of; it's is about the time it takes the moon to go around the earth.

But how the day is divided or subdivided has no connection to the physical world.
Why not just use base 10 like they did for weight, distance and volume?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
well I know the second is based roughtly on the average resting heart rate. (Or at least that's the story, it's probably lost to time by now.)

But why there are 60 of them in a minute I don't know. (I'm sure google knows.)

Maybe there's also a connection to music tempos, things slower than 1 beat per second seems "slow" to our ears and faster than that seems "fast".
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
George K
Member Avatar
Finally
kenny
Oct 4 2008, 07:42 PM
Why not just use base 10 like they did for weight, distance and volume?

They did that? I must've missed it.

Oh, you're in Canada! I get it. :P
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
George :tsktsk: pull your pants down and spank yourself.



:silly:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Radu
Member Avatar
Senior Carp
Fact : without using any special instruments, it is possible to divide a circle into SIX parts using the same rope with which you draw the circle (the radius).

Now... take it from here ....and you'll find the answer to your quest ! Good luck !
Posted Image
------------------------------------------------------------
"Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!"
The modern media has made cretins out of so many people that they're not interested in reality any more, unless it's reality TV (Jean D'eaux)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Radu
Member Avatar
Senior Carp
George K
Oct 5 2008, 03:48 AM
Oh, you're in Canada! I get it. :P

In Canada as in the Old Great Britain they measure weight in STONES and time in BUCKETS (of beer).
Posted Image
------------------------------------------------------------
"Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!"
The modern media has made cretins out of so many people that they're not interested in reality any more, unless it's reality TV (Jean D'eaux)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Beer is VERY popular here.

VERY popular.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Radu
Oct 4 2008, 04:51 PM
Fact : without using any special instruments, it is possible to divide a circle into SIX parts using the same rope with which you draw the circle (the radius).

Now... take it from here ....and you'll find the answer to your quest ! Good luck !

Hm, if you mean a radius lengthed rope to trace the circumference, and use 6 lengths of it to do so, that sort of works but the error there would be around 5% or so (since really it's 6.28 lengths) which seems like around the same error you could get if you just eyeballed splitting it up into 4 or 8 pie pieces.

Maybe they assumed the error was on their end and that theoretically it should have been exactly 6?
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Radu
Member Avatar
Senior Carp
Horace
Oct 5 2008, 04:08 AM
Radu
Oct 4 2008, 04:51 PM
Fact : without using any special instruments, it is possible to divide a circle into SIX parts using the same rope with which you draw the circle (the radius).

Now... take it from here ....and you'll find the answer to your quest ! Good luck !

Hm, if you mean a radius lengthed rope to trace the circumference, and use 6 lengths of it to do so, that sort of works but the error there would be around 5% or so (since really it's 6.28 lengths) which seems like around the same error you could get if you just eyeballed splitting it up into 4 or 8 pie pieces.

Maybe they assumed the error was on their end and that theoretically it should have been exactly 6?

Not to trace the circumference but to mark arcs. You put one end of the rope on a starting point on the circumference and then, keeping the rope well tensed you mark the second point on the circumference. And so on. There is no error !
Posted Image
------------------------------------------------------------
"Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!"
The modern media has made cretins out of so many people that they're not interested in reality any more, unless it's reality TV (Jean D'eaux)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jon-nyc
Member Avatar
Cheers
The French had a 'metric' (if you want to call it that) clock and calendar which was promoted after the revolution, at the same time they adopted the metric system. I've seen watches from the era in Museums in Paris, and you can read pieces from the period that use their month and day system.

I'm not sure when they dropped it, or why it didn't catch on.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jon-nyc
Member Avatar
Cheers
There's more about it at wiki. Apparently they used it for 12 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Larry
Member Avatar
Mmmmmmm, pie!
I've been all over the free world and have yet to go anywhere where they measure time in 100 minutes to the hour, 100 seconds to the minute.

Where do they do that?

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Radu
Member Avatar
Senior Carp
Also see Sexagesimal
Posted Image
------------------------------------------------------------
"Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!"
The modern media has made cretins out of so many people that they're not interested in reality any more, unless it's reality TV (Jean D'eaux)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Kenny,

I think it has to do with the fact that the radius of a circle perfectly segments the perimeter of the circle into six equal sectors. That's where the "six" comes from. Further splitting each segment in halves get you the "12" hours on the clock. Splitting each 1/12 sector into five equal segments get you the "60" minutes (and "60" seconds) on the clock.

Just a hunch. :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Axtremus
Oct 4 2008, 06:19 PM
Kenny,

I think it has to do with the fact that the radius of a circle perfectly segments the perimeter of the circle into six equal sectors. That's where the "six" comes from. Further splitting each segment in halves get you the "12" hours on the clock. Splitting each 1/12 sector into five equal segments get you the "60" minutes (and "60" seconds) on the clock.

Just a hunch. :)

The six segments makes sense. The 12 also agrees with the early counting methods (you can count to 12 on one hand very easily).
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Radu
Oct 4 2008, 05:11 PM
Horace
Oct 5 2008, 04:08 AM
Radu
Oct 4 2008, 04:51 PM
Fact : without using any special instruments, it is possible to divide a circle into SIX parts using the same rope with which you draw the circle (the radius).

Now... take it from here ....and you'll find the answer to your quest ! Good luck !

Hm, if you mean a radius lengthed rope to trace the circumference, and use 6 lengths of it to do so, that sort of works but the error there would be around 5% or so (since really it's 6.28 lengths) which seems like around the same error you could get if you just eyeballed splitting it up into 4 or 8 pie pieces.

Maybe they assumed the error was on their end and that theoretically it should have been exactly 6?

Not to trace the circumference but to mark arcs. You put one end of the rope on a starting point on the circumference and then, keeping the rope well tensed you mark the second point on the circumference. And so on. There is no error !

Ah, very interesting!
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Copper
Member Avatar
Shortstop
kenny
Oct 4 2008, 08:42 PM


Why not just use base 10 like they did for weight, distance and volume?


At the time base 12 systems ruled the world.

Metric is such a vile, unnatural system.

Let’s hope we can do away with it as soon as possible.
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
You and whose army, boson?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
jon-nyc
Oct 4 2008, 05:13 PM
I'm not sure when they dropped it, or why it didn't catch on.

Lack of agreement.

Agreement is everything.
Agreement become reality.
Then the agreement vanishes.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jodi
Member Avatar
Fulla-Carp
12 is a nice number because it's easy to divide it into halves, thirds, and quarters.

:) Jodi

:) Jodi
my artlog ~ todayatmydesk.weebly.com
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jgoo
Member Avatar
Administrator
http://zapatopi.net/metrictime/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time
http://www.indwes.edu/Faculty/bcupp/things/metrictm.htm
http://www.billcollins.com.au/bc/mt/index.htm
http://www.decimaltime.hynes.net/metric.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Thank jgoo.
Some cool stuff to read there!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riley
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
Oct 4 2008, 09:02 PM
Beer is VERY popular here.

VERY popular.

Have you made a trip to The Beer Store yet?

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Riley, answered in the London thread.

http://z10.invisionfree.com/The_New_Coffee...0&#entry2532831
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Join the millions that use us for their forum communities. Create your own forum today.
Learn More · Register Now
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply