SI mass unit, why?

[VaPaL]

1 minute ago, p1t1o said:

I want perfect understanding NOW

But then you will end with a system that is constantly changing and would be even messier.

[StrandedonEarth]

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The French Revolution also tried to adopt a metric calendar (12 months, 30 days, 10 days in a week, plus 5 or 6 extra days to catch up)

I always thought this would be a great idea. The 5 or 6 days at the end would be full of Year's End or Turnover festivities and celebrations.

As I understood it, the Imperial system was based on the length of the king's thumb (pouce in french; also means inch) and feet (the foot, obviously). No wonder it got confusing and difficult to standardize, especially when there was a new king. Not sure what the other Imperial measurements were based on.

[VaPaL]

@StrandedonEarth There is the Costworth Plan, a proposed calendar with 13 months, 28 days a month (4 weeks) 1 day for leap year and 1 extra day (year day) that would be a holiday.

Month	Starts	Ends
January	January 1	January 28
February	January 29	February 25
March	February 26	March 25*
April	March 26*	April 22*
May	April 23*	May 20*
June	May 21*	June 17*
Leap Day	June 17
Sol	June 18	July 15
July	July 16	August 12
August	August 13	September 9
September	September 10	October 7
October	October 8	November 4
November	November 5	December 2
December	December 3	December 30
Year Day	December 31

Look how clean each month would look:

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, VaPaL said:

a proposed calendar with 13 months, 28 days a month (4 weeks) 1 day for leap year and 1 extra day (year day) that would be a holiday.

I.e. from calculations pov, with 14..15 months per year, including two months 1 day long, one of which can be, can not.

[VaPaL]

@kerbiloid Yep, that is the main problem with it, nor more semestreal, trimestral ou bimestral division. It's only the whole year or nothing (or an uneven division). But that's it, everything else is much easier to calculate. Tha dates don't change the day of the week from year to year. For monthly based thing it's evenly distributed.

 

EDIT: There are other calendar proposals, and interesting one is the Asimov's calendar. The others are very much alike what we have now or the Costwroth's.

Edited March 9, 2017 by VaPaL

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, VaPaL said:

nor more semestreal, trimestral ou bimestral division

That's not a problem! They just can let one month (plus those 1..2) to be a festival.
So, there will be exactly 12 regular months x 28 days (it's even great as they can be aligned to lunar months).
And a Moonfest between (29 or 30 days long - doesn't matter, anyway, nobody will remember.)

The primary unit must be not a year, but a quadyear, exactly 4 years.
Every quad they run elections, plan the next quad economics, etc.

[cantab]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I always thought this would be a great idea.

The 10 day week fell because workers did not overlook the fact that 1/10 is less than 1/7 when it came to their rest days. On the other hand 3/10 is a little more than 2/7 so perhaps it could gain some popularity nowadays, but then having a longer period of consecutive work days would probably be unpopular.

Perennial calendars make the same day of the year always the same day of the week, and that's not always desirable. 5 out of 7 people would always have their birthday on a weekday, for example. And then there are the religious objections which I think in most countries would really sink the idea. (EDIT: The religious issues associated with having a day that's not part of a week might be resolved by a leap week calendar, but then that has its own problems.)

Edited March 9, 2017 by cantab

[VaPaL]

4 minutes ago, cantab said:

5 out of 7 people would always have their birthday on a weekday

Yeah, but the way that it's now, everyone have their birthdays 5 out of 7 times in weekdays, so... ANd it's just the matter of celebrating it in the nearmost weekend, not a big problem in my POV. Religions will make a fuss about it, as they always do. But I think that this should be independent on religion, much like the State is, alsosome religions and cultures already follow their on calendar.

[StrandedonEarth]

20 minutes ago, cantab said:

The 10 day week fell because workers did not overlook the fact that 1/10 is less than 1/7 when it came to their rest days. On the other hand 3/10 is a little more than 2/7 so perhaps it could gain some popularity nowadays, but then having a longer period of consecutive work days would probably be unpopular.

Perennial calendars make the same day of the year always the same day of the week, and that's not always desirable. 5 out of 7 people would always have their birthday on a weekday, for example. And then there are the religious objections which I think in most countries would really sink the idea. (EDIT: The religious issues associated with having a day that's not part of a week might be resolved by a leap week calendar, but then that has its own problems.)

Some good points there. OTOH, I also feel that someone's birthday should be their own personal statutory holiday, which would neatly circumvent that issue. As it is, my birthday falls on the last possible day for the first day of school (the first Tuesday after Labor Day here), so school is always in by the time I get my birthday (I know, that's how it is for the majority of people, but still) and at least twice I got the first day of school for my birthday. Oh yay .

[monstah]

21 minutes ago, VaPaL said:

Yeah, but the way that it's now, everyone have their birthdays 5 out of 7 times in weekdays, so...

Yeah, but they get to experience their birthdays in all different weekdays throughout their lives. In a perennial calendar, going by the year I was born, my birthday would always be on... *googles* Friday.

Oh, well. I guess I can live with that after all  

[Shpaget]

15 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

They measured between Barcelona and Dunkirk (which just happens to go right through Paris, which is why the French thought that of course this was the best longitude to immortalize as the official meter).

I wonder how long has one guy spent hunched over a map with a ruler pinned on Paris, deciding which two towns he'll pick.

12 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The French Revolution also tried to adopt a metric calendar (12 months, 30 days, 10 days in a week, plus 5 or 6 extra days to catch up), but it was abolished after Napoleon in 1806. They even tried a metric 10-hour day, but that didn't work.

I'm kind of sad that didn't work out.

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The 5 or 6 days at the end would be full of Year's End or Turnover festivities and celebrations.

Sounds like fun!

[YNM]

11 hours ago, VaPaL said:

If we make everything planck based as kerbiloid suggests, who knows, maybe 100 years from now it will be as stupid, arbitrary and made up as the one we uses now.

Well I prefer to be connected to history... a bit... I suppose, however, since SI is now very, very much un-arbitrary (one unit is defined in connection with other(s) and only some units is based on measurements), very accurately defined and all other system of units is definable in SI (and even defined in SI), I think this one would last longer and better than all the previous imperial system.

9 hours ago, VaPaL said:

There is the Costworth Plan, a proposed calendar with 13 months, 28 days a month (4 weeks) 1 day for leap year and 1 extra day (year day) that would be a holiday.

Month	Starts	Ends
January	January 1	January 28
February	January 29	February 25
March	February 26	March 25*
April	March 26*	April 22*
May	April 23*	May 20*
June	May 21*	June 17*
Leap Day	June 17
Sol	June 18	July 15
July	July 16	August 12
August	August 13	September 9
September	September 10	October 7
October	October 8	November 4
November	November 5	December 2
December	December 3	December 30
Year Day	December 31

Look how clean each month would look:

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28

I... guess for a lot of beliefs / religious observance that'd be a big problem - the days aren't continuous. (apart from the fact that a lot of them already use their own calendar, which is not really changeable.)

[VaPaL]

35 minutes ago, YNM said:

since SI is now very, very much un-arbitrary

But still arbitrary nontheless. Tha fact that you have very good reasons to define some unit that way doesn't mean that there aren't other reasons as good and valid to choose some other definition. While I agree that this system will endure much longer, in a future it can still be persived as arbitrary as any other. But discussing the future is hard and boils down to nothing more than a guess, so in the end (it doesn't even matter) I kind agree with you

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, VaPaL said:

so in the end (it doesn't even matter)

It starts with one... unit, and then ties into the others

Edited March 10, 2017 by StrandedonEarth

[mikegarrison]

The most arbitrary thing about the SI units: if we had six digits on each hand instead of five, there is no way we would be arranging everything to work in powers of 10. They would all be powers of 12.

[kerbiloid]

37 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

The most arbitrary thing about the SI units: if we had six digits on each hand instead of five, there is no way we would be arranging everything to work in powers of 10. They would all be powers of 12.

That would be great, as 2x2x3 is more useful than 2x5, but the school pupils hate you. They should learn 12x12 multiplication table.
Also 12-base could then reduce into 6-base, as human perception can keep in mind 7..9 objects simultaneously, rather than 12.

[FleshJeb]

On 3/8/2017 at 7:38 PM, mikegarrison said:

The one I read is called The Measure Of All Things, by Ken Adler.

Thanks for that. I'm a surveyor, I'll have to check it out.