time
i've been bothered by the gregorian calender since yesterday. it keeps popping into my mind. i suggested that a more accurate measurement of time should be kept, with more sensible divisions and groupings. my friend suggested i switch to unix time, which counts each day as 86,400 seconds. of course, i feel the fundamental problem lies in the units of measurement used to tell time, but after researching earth's diameter, rate of rotation, orbital speed, and distance traveled around the sun, this is a math equation too advanced for my mind. so, i'm going to accept that a second is a decent unit of time, at least it is agreed upon by every nation. i'm also going to accept that it takes, as we know it, 365.24 days to orbit the sun. so i multiplied 365.24 by 86,400 and got 31,556,736. an even number! this is great seeing as how i'm being so ocd about this. that may be the driving factor behind all my thought on this: obsessive compulsion. but i'm going to roll with it.
now the question is how to divide this number. we know how many seconds in a day and we know how many seconds in a year. so how can we divide yearly seconds into more sensible months, days, hours and minutes? well we currently have 12 months in each year, which works for me as there are 4 seasons in a year, 4 goes into 12, so let's start with that. that will give us 2,629,728 seconds in a month. now to divide that into days. what if we had 36 days in each month? this is the closest even number pertinent to how many days we usually have in a month. that's 73,048 seconds a day. so a day would have to be shorter. does this really work? can we accept this? no way. that's because a sidereal day (one full turn of the earth) is actually 86,164 seconds.
so that completely failed, but it was fun.
now let's go with the amount of seconds in a sidereal day. 86,164.0906 seconds in a sidereal day. 24 won't go into that. there must be a pretty even number that will go into it. just for now, let's drop the .0906. if we divide by 2's we get relatively even numbers at first. divide by 16 and we get 5385.25. so let's say we're going to have 16 "hours" which are 5385.25 seconds long each. now to figure out how many "minutes" should be in that "hour". if we divide by 64 we get 84.144531251. so we could have 64 "minutes" in an "hour" consisting of 84.144531251 seconds each. so let's go back and add the .0906 we left off previously and see how much that fucks us up.
84,164.0906 seconds in a day.
divided by 16 "hours": 5260.2556625
divided by 64 "minutes": 82.1914947265625
now a sidereal year is equal to 365.256363004. multiply this by sidereal seconds in a day and we get 31,471,982.3541031441624 seconds in a year. is there a way to come up with a more accurate amount of days in a year? the sidereal year number i got is based on how many solar days there are in a year.
ok, after more research i've found an ACTUAL sidereal year is 366.25 days, or 366.25 occurrences of 86,164 second increments (one sidereal rotation). so the seconds in a year are 31,557,565. so working off of this, i propose a 10 month calender consisting of either 36 or 37 days each. they would go as follows: month 1: 36 days. month 2: 37 days. month 3: 36 days. month 4: 37 days. month 5: 37 days. month 6: 37 days. month 7: 36 days. month 8: 37 days. month 9: 36 days and month 10: 37 days. this gives us our full 366 days. as for the extra quarter day, that's 21541 seconds. if we go back to our original 5385.25 seconds per "hour" and change this to 5386 seconds per "hour", we get 86,176 seconds a day. divide 31,557,565 by 86,176 and we get 366.2, which is not perfect but pretty close. with more patience i could do the math perfectly, and the earth does wobble on its axis, and we'd still have to compensate for drift, but here is my proposed calender:
1 year is equal to 366 days, or 31,557,565 seconds.
1 year is equal to 10 months.
10 months is equal to 36.625 days (alternating 36 or 37 days)
1 day is equal to 16 hours.
1 hour is equal to 64 minutes.
1 minute is equal to 84.2 seconds
i have yet to figure out a good system for dispersing the extra seconds rather than counting to 84.2.....or we could just count to 84.2. end of story. when i do the real math, all these number will be messed up anyway.
that's all i have for now.
now the question is how to divide this number. we know how many seconds in a day and we know how many seconds in a year. so how can we divide yearly seconds into more sensible months, days, hours and minutes? well we currently have 12 months in each year, which works for me as there are 4 seasons in a year, 4 goes into 12, so let's start with that. that will give us 2,629,728 seconds in a month. now to divide that into days. what if we had 36 days in each month? this is the closest even number pertinent to how many days we usually have in a month. that's 73,048 seconds a day. so a day would have to be shorter. does this really work? can we accept this? no way. that's because a sidereal day (one full turn of the earth) is actually 86,164 seconds.
so that completely failed, but it was fun.
now let's go with the amount of seconds in a sidereal day. 86,164.0906 seconds in a sidereal day. 24 won't go into that. there must be a pretty even number that will go into it. just for now, let's drop the .0906. if we divide by 2's we get relatively even numbers at first. divide by 16 and we get 5385.25. so let's say we're going to have 16 "hours" which are 5385.25 seconds long each. now to figure out how many "minutes" should be in that "hour". if we divide by 64 we get 84.144531251. so we could have 64 "minutes" in an "hour" consisting of 84.144531251 seconds each. so let's go back and add the .0906 we left off previously and see how much that fucks us up.
84,164.0906 seconds in a day.
divided by 16 "hours": 5260.2556625
divided by 64 "minutes": 82.1914947265625
now a sidereal year is equal to 365.256363004. multiply this by sidereal seconds in a day and we get 31,471,982.3541031441624 seconds in a year. is there a way to come up with a more accurate amount of days in a year? the sidereal year number i got is based on how many solar days there are in a year.
ok, after more research i've found an ACTUAL sidereal year is 366.25 days, or 366.25 occurrences of 86,164 second increments (one sidereal rotation). so the seconds in a year are 31,557,565. so working off of this, i propose a 10 month calender consisting of either 36 or 37 days each. they would go as follows: month 1: 36 days. month 2: 37 days. month 3: 36 days. month 4: 37 days. month 5: 37 days. month 6: 37 days. month 7: 36 days. month 8: 37 days. month 9: 36 days and month 10: 37 days. this gives us our full 366 days. as for the extra quarter day, that's 21541 seconds. if we go back to our original 5385.25 seconds per "hour" and change this to 5386 seconds per "hour", we get 86,176 seconds a day. divide 31,557,565 by 86,176 and we get 366.2, which is not perfect but pretty close. with more patience i could do the math perfectly, and the earth does wobble on its axis, and we'd still have to compensate for drift, but here is my proposed calender:
1 year is equal to 366 days, or 31,557,565 seconds.
1 year is equal to 10 months.
10 months is equal to 36.625 days (alternating 36 or 37 days)
1 day is equal to 16 hours.
1 hour is equal to 64 minutes.
1 minute is equal to 84.2 seconds
i have yet to figure out a good system for dispersing the extra seconds rather than counting to 84.2.....or we could just count to 84.2. end of story. when i do the real math, all these number will be messed up anyway.
that's all i have for now.