Talk:Metric time

Archived of this talk page restored at Talk:Metric_time/archive1

note to contributors in the USA:
the use of non ISO standard seperators in articles should be avoided.

96% of the world uses a comma as a decimal seperator ex: (0,864) and a period (.) as a thousands seperator, ex: (1.000.000 = 1 million) the ISO standard is to leave a space between thousands, and to use a comma as a decimal point.

American date format (MM DD, YYYY) is also unique in the world (used only in the USA) and should also be avoided. the world standard date format being: (DD MM YYYY), and the ISO standard (YYYY-MM-DD). ISO standard time format: (00:00:00)

the term Billion also causes problems when used in the American definition (1.000.000.000) since the rest of the world uses the chuquet system where 1.000.000.000 is a Milliard (1000 million) and 1.000.000.000.000 is a billion.

American Standard measures, based on obsolete English Imperial Units, should also be avoided, since the USA is the only remaining country still using this system.

you will cause a great deal of confusion to those outside the USA (which accounts for only 4% of the world's population) by using standards unique to the United States.


 * Please see Manual_of_Style_dates_and_numbers for the current en: wikipedia policy on this. If you feel that this is incorrect, or should be changed, please discuss it there. Specifically, dates should follow the guide lines in that document, (i.e. Month-name-in-full Day-Number Year--number ) as this allows local user cutomisation.

Iainscott 13:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am delighted by the (apparently) sudden and passionate interest in decimal and metric time, since the posting of the articles, and more than happy to discuss the subject/s, and additions to the articles here..The Author
 * This is not an addition. It is a reversion to material that is formatted incorrectly as per the Manual of Style, not to mention grammatically incorrect and HTML-using. If you wish to make actual useful edits, please do, but don't continue your crank-like obsessions with keeping your version of the article. -- Grunt (talk) 14:37, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

make whatever corrections you feel are needed, however any US standard formatting will be reverted to international formatting
 * If you would like to change formatting, please do so without reverting everything else too. -- Grunt (talk) 15:03, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)


 * This is the english wikipedia. Formatting of numbers (and especially dates) should be in the style detailedhere.Iainscott 15:09, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

sorry, next time I will only edit the formatting, many of your links were not active Wiki links, were you planning on writing articles for these?
 * No, but other people might be. :) -- Grunt (talk) 15:16, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

Your statistic of 96% is patently false, and irrelevant to the English Wikipedia. Our conventions are based on what is most agreeable to the majority of the English-speaking world, which almost universally uses periods and commas to delimit decimals and thousands, respectively. On the French Wiki, Continental punctuation conventions are observed, as this is what the majority of French speakers expect. This is as it should be.

The so-called "American" convention for millions and billions is that used throughout the scientific community, and commonly avoided by enumerating such large numbers anyway. As for your apparent hatred of dual-standard measurement systems, I invite you to peruse, at your leisure, our manual of style, in addition to our excellent article on metrication.

Hope this helps.

Austin Hair

'''this time I have only edited the formatting and not the text, shall we agree to leave it as it is, until more useful material can be added? :-)'''

btw. The current world population is 6400 Million - the current US Population is 4,6% of the world total (300 Million) - the Population of the EU is 450 Million - which includes Great Britain (an English speaking state) - English is not defined as "American".


 * I'm English. Here we use a period as a decimal seperator and a space as a thousands seperator. [[Image:Theresa Knott Sig.gif]] 15:34, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I am not a native english speaker, but in english I use the period as a decimal separator and a space or komma as a thousand separator (different from my native language) -- Chris 73 Talk 15:56, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

here in Germany (and the rest of the continent), we use komma as a decimal seperator, and punkt (.) as a thousands seperator, which makes reading English sites quite confusing %-(


 * Well I find reading french or german websites quite confuseing... I dont, however, go to the french or german wikipedias and insist that they change their style conventions. Perhaps you could extend the same curtosy to the english wikipedia? Iainscott 16:17, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would first like to apologise for my persistant reverts and header removal, I give you my word as a gentleman that no such edits will occur again. it was not my intention to be disrepectful, nor uncooperative. I would prefer to work with all of you in working out an positive solution which is acceptable to everyone.

in reply to Iainscott - I understand, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with american standards, I am simply suggesting that ISO formatting (which is a global standard, comprehensible to anyone - americans, europeans, asians, etc..) would be a practicle compromise solution. do you agree?


 * While I can't speak for Iainscott, I certainly do not agree. The ISO convention is perfectly suitable for ISO standards, but encyclopedias are written in common language using common conventions.  The English-speaking world, and for that matter the entire Western Hemisphere, is accustomed to seeing the period used as a decimal point; to suddenly usurp this in the name of "Internationalism" is unacceptable.  One of the first things learned in the course of studying another language is its punctuation conventions, and swapping around the marks we use to delimit numbers would serve only to confuse, not disambiguate.  (At any rate, you're on the wrong page for this discussion&mdash;if you want to effect policy change, take it up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.)  Austin Hair 02:33, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I see that the English-speaking world is quite unified in this standard, however The Entire Western Hemisphere is not, since I also live in the Western Hemisphere, along with those in other non English speaking European countries, all of which use a comma to signify a decimal place, and a period to signify thousands.Metrische Zeit 31 August 2004 - 16:00 (UTC)

Asimov units
The Asimov proposal had names fot the units. I don't remember them, and anyway the essay was translated. Probably one of them was the while or something like that.

metric v. decimal
This article seems to be more about Decimal time of day than about the metric system.

There seems to seems to be some confusion here between metric and decimal, and between time interval and time of day. The modern metric system (SI) defines units of time interval, while the time of day is defined by various time scales, some of which are based upon the metric base unit of time interval. Time of day is like, "We will strike the enemy at 0800 hours." Time interval is like, "The battle lasted 8 hours." You measure time of day with a clock or watch, and time interval with a stop watch. The stuff about French clocks and Swiss watches should probably be moved to the Decimal time article.

But then, if this article was really about the metric system's definitions of time, then perhaps it should just redirect to the existing article on the Second. The only reason I can think to keep it would be if there were other metric time units in use or seriously proposed. Although "millidays" sound intriguing, does anyone actually use them? I see that there are a lot of web sites about individual proposals for "metric time," but most of them are really about decimal time of day, and many seem to have little to do with the metric system. -- Nike 07:00, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

-- Now the Decimal and Metric articles point back and forth to each other. The historic version of this page was better in that respect.

Someone has added a heading "Alternate Meanings" which repeats information already in "Alternate Units". I don't object in principle to this section, but the two sections should be distinct from each other if they are going to both be there. -- Nike 07:55, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Better" how? Please be specific. I tried to make the two articles complementary, rather than contradictary. Of course they point to each other, since they cover similar topics, and are often mentioned together, or confused with each other. Of course, there is always room for improvement, so if you think that something could be worded better or added, please go ahead, anonymous one. -- Nike 11:58, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * It must be remembered that not all decimal is metric and not all metric is SI. Firstly, SI is one of many possible metric systems (Stephen Dresner lists 17 different metric systems in his Encyclopedia of Units).  Metric as it is usually suggested does not have a time system.  The suggestion that the metric time system should be a decimal devision of the quarter-day comes from the use of right-assecension in astronomy, this would exactly match metric angle only when the time is a decimal division of the quadrant-day.  Other decimal divisions do not align with the metrics save for being decimal.  --Wendy.krieger (talk) 11:45, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

On this note, I find it odd that the article's marquee image is of a French Decimal clock labeled as a "Metric Clock", despite having a section that supposedly clarifies the issue. — 41 7 「話」 23:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Alternative Units
I made some changes to this section. I reverted the line about "notable acceptance", because lack of familiarity isn't the only reason people haven't all changed base units for time. Much of the rest of the last paragraph was repetitive or just very poorly written, and I removed the last line:
 * A quarter that was current in China for a couple of millennia before the Jesuits had the ke redefined.
 * because it doesn't make any sense at all. FireWorks 06:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Lapidary, admitted, but I envisaged the interested and clever reader to follow the ke-link for clarification (and the blue linked quarter stands for - of an hour, i.e. 15 minutes). As for acceptance, it is a well tested fact in office and home environments with decimal clocks that it was lack of feeling for how long new franctions of minutes and hours were that made people most uneasy with the new units. / Kurtan 23:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Moved from article space: "In computing"
I wanted to point out, that most computer operating systems use (at least internally) metric time for timekeeping and assigned date/times to objects like files (in contrast to using seconds,minutes,hours,day,month,year, as for example DOS did). I therefore added the paragraph:

In computing
In computing, at least internally, metric time gained widespread use for ease of computation. Unix time gives date and time as number of seconds since January 1 1970, Microsoft's FILETIME as multiples of 100ns since January 1 1601.

This was just reverted. Perhaps other editors may want to voice their opinion. --Pjacobi 12:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think that Unix time is usually considered any more "metric time" than UTC is, since they both use whole SI seconds to track civil time, rather than measuring time interval using metric prefixes. Unix time is decimal expression of time, which some people call metric time, but strictly speaking, it's not.

However, metric time submultiples are used on computers, e.g. milliseconds, microseconds and nanoseconds. Unix time is usually stored in binary as an integral number of seconds; milliseconds, etc., are stored as a separate number. Network Time Protocol is another application using nanoseconds. I would like the article to elaborate more on the use of metric submultiples (and multiples) on computers. --Nike 11:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The O'Harian Calendar
I doubt this is worthy for inclusion in Wikipedia, but it might be. Anyway, I just found this page. Its about an alternative system of times and dates. Best of all though, it is actually going to be used - on asdfjkl;.com I just wondered what other Wikipedians thought of the idea?--Bjw e bb (talk) 10:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This seems to have nothing to do with the subject of metric time, and Wikipedia does not allow original research. Try a calendar reform forum, such as CALNDR-L. --Nike 19:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Metric time in fiction?
Might be worth to make such section. E.g. I know that Vernor Vinge used kiloseconds and megaseconds in his novels. 80.201.199.103 17:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * And that one episode of The Simpsons. Principal Skinner moves Springfield to a version of Metric Time.  It's that first one with Stephen Hawking.--The Sporadic Update 00:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If memory serves, metric time is also used in Joan D Vinge's Heaven's Chronicles series, whose characters live in habitiats an asteroid belt without a natural day. Edwin Greenwood (talk) 13:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Date metric system was introduced
The article states:
 * When the metric system was introduced in France in 1795, it included units for length, area, dry volume, liquid capacity, weight or mass, and even currency, but not for time.

Someone changed this, with the note "exact date: 24 November 1793 (4 Frimaire of the Year II)". This is incorrect. That was the date that the full Republican Calendar was introduced, along with decimal time. The Republican decimal metric system of weights and measures was introduced by the act passed on 18 Germinal an III (April 7, 1795). There were earlier acts passed relating to the metre in 1793, but it was the 1795 act which finally established the entire system, including the metre, litre, gramme, are, stere and franc, along with the metric prefixes. Decimal time was also indefinitely suspended in the same act. See A History of the Meter for more information. --Nike 22:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Unit of Metric Time
One of the drawbacks to the argument for adoption of metric time is that a usable unit of measurement has not been derived.

All other measures are based on the meter - liter as 1,000 cubic centimeters, gram as the mass of a cubic centimeter of water, degree as 1/100th the amount heat to transform that volume of water from solid to gaseous states, etc. - but no such derivative has been defined to equate time, in any meaningful way, to the meter.

Compounding that problem is the inability to correlate a decimal measurement to readily observable phenomena (phenomena on which much of human activity is based). Specifically, the relationship of an observable day (one full rotation of the earth) to an observable year (one full rotation of the earth around the sun) cannot be expressed evenly in multiples of ten - therefore to use either as the basis of measurement would render the other useless for any but the most academic of purposes.

Granted, none of this points to a solution - but it may be indicative of the reasons a solution for metric time has not yet been defined, and may possibly never be defined. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.246.150.146 (talk) 15:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

It might be possible to use the speed of light as a basis for a unit of metric time.

The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second - so the base unit (I'll call it a "tick" for lack of a common term) could be the amount of time it takes light to travel one gigameter - which would be roughly a third of a second (1 second equals 3.3444 ticks)

That would satisfy your first goal (to have an objective measurement, derived from the meter) ... though it does not satisfy your second goal (even numbers for observable phenomena) - a day would be 25.0872 kiloticks and a 365-day year 9.156 megaticks.

But then, to beg the question, are observable phenomena really that important? Water may boil at a nice, even 100 degrees - but every other liquid boils at a non-interger temperature - and what observable phenomenon corresponds to one kilometer or one megagram?

Granted, human beings live their lives in daily, seasonal, and annual cycles (dismissing the month and week, as those are entirely arbitrary), but I see nothing wrong with a 25-kilotick clock and a 9-megatick calendar, aside from having to adjust for "leap" ticks (which is no different from the current standard, with leap seconds and leap days).


 * This is original research. Besides, there already is a unit of metric time, which, as the article states, is the SI second, and which also has a precise relationship with the meter in the SI metric system.  This is a solution in search of a problem.  It would make no sense to define the metric time unit in terms of the meter, because we can measure time much more precisely than we can measure distance, which is why the meter is defined in terms of time, instead of the other way around.  The metric time unit is defined in terms of atomic oscillations.  The metric system has had a "usable unit of (time) measurement" for over a century now.  It may be unfortunate that there is no even number correspondence with the meter, but there is not such a correspondence with other base units, either.  In fact, despite its original definition, the kilogram is not defined in terms of the meter today, and is only an approximation of the original definition, and the gram, itself, is defined as 1/1000 kg.  The liter was also for a long time only an approximation, until it was more recently redefined to be a synonym for the cubic decimeter.


 * Also, please be sure to sign your comments. --Nike 22:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Try this: . It provides both consistency and obedience to septimal week from Ten Commandments by geometrized derivation of all units from daynight, while using septimal multiples and submultiples. Wikinger 16:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * In all ideas of time the day is the only constant. So it seems to me that the base unit of metric time should be the day, like the Chinese used.  Everyone here is talking about the second being the base unit of time, but the second is only an arbitrary value that is 1/60th of a minute, which is 1/60th of an hour, which is 1/12th of 1/2 of a day.  The second is just a small fraction of the actual base unit, 1 day.  I know this in all falling on deaf ears, so does anyone know if there is anywhere that someone could share real ideas of metric time with the world and have an educated conversation? --TGO 21:24 December 18, 2007 (CAT)

First, the "septimal" stuff is totally irrelevant here. Second, the article is primarily about what is, rather than what ought to be. The second is the only accepted and used metric unit of time, although others have been proposed. There is a forum where conversation about these ideas are shared. --Nike (talk) 22:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

40-hour Day
If ever we decide to metricize the day, maybe we should go with a 40-hour day (instead of the 10-hour day most would propose); we'd have a 10-hour morning, a 10-hour afternoon, a 10-hour evening, and a 10-hour overnight period.

There's a system of angular measurement called, variously, the grad, grade, gradian, gon... There are 400 grad per circle -- that's 100 per right angle...



This works reasonably well with the Earth, since it's very close to being 40 000 km in circumference.

So, a 40-hour day would line up reasonably well with the Earth's movements... One hour (1/40th of a rotation) would cover 1 000 km of distance (at the equator).

But as with most metricized days, the second would have to be redefined. Currently, there are 86 400 s/d (24 x 60 x 60).

With a 40-hour day, each hour having 100 minutes, each minute having 100 seconds, there'd be 400 000 s/d (40 x 100 x 100).

An alternative would be to have hours and millihours instead of minutes and seconds: so, 40 x 1000 = 40 000 mh/d. That'd make the mh a little more than twice what the second is now. To ease transition, the second could be defined as half a millihour, making 80 000 s/d. The new second would then be 1,08% of what it is now.

Of course, there'd be some repercussions; e.g., the speed of light would become 323 775 854,64 m/s, due to the slight increase in the duration of the second.

rAS--192.75.95.127 (talk) 05:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This appears to be original research, and certainly does not relate to the existing metric system. Actually, it's not so original, since it has been proposed numerous times already. --Nike (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The idea of the quarter-day has been around for a long time, since this aligns with the angle. See, eg demur and hesit at http://grandadmiralpetry.tripod.com/?metric.html.  Bill Colins http://www.billcollins.com.au/bc/mt/index.htm divides the day to 20 hours \ 100 minutes \ 20 seconds, or ultimately 40,000 seconds.  Both of these link the time to the metric angle system.--Wendy.krieger (talk) 10:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Metropolis
The office features two unfamiliar clocks: a 24-hour clock and a and a ten-hour clock, ten hours being the length of the workers' shifts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.95.42.136 (talk) 06:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Decimal Time article?
Might be more appropriate to make them a single article: Decimal time. Interlaker (talk) 14:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it make more sense to merge it with second? Since this article is primarily about the metric unit for time, the second. --Nike (talk) 04:12, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The only content of the Metric time article which seems unique is the history of alternative time units proposed for the metric system, e.g. centijour/centiday, centicé, centihour, etc. The "Problems" section is uncited, and appears to be original research, IMHO. The "Popular culture" section does not seem to be very notable. "Alternative meaning" is the only part which really discusses decimal time, and it's actually disambiguation. --Nike (talk) 06:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposed New Remod of Decimal Date & Time ("Universal Date-Time" or "UDT" format)
I tend to agree/prefer the proposed decimal time by the SI president/founder that divides 1 day in tenth recursively. I intentionally uses singular unit naming to simplify things up from unnecessary pluralism.

1 day = 10 decimal hour = 10 deciday = 10 dd

1 deciday (1dd) = 10 decimal minute = 10 centiday = 10 cd

1 centiday (1cd) = 10 decimal second = 10 milliday = 10 md

So, a day will have 1000 milliday (1000 md) with 1 milliday (1 decimal second) = 6 standard second. Yes, you're right - the UDT second/milliday hand will tick/move with longer delay than current 24h60m60s/standard second hand. If you ever want to see a faster hand moves, just add the microday hand - it'll move much faster than standard 24h60m60s second hand though. In this digital age, I prefer digital clocks that can save repair cost & time of analog clock's hand moving in faster tick rate over than 1 standard second tick (axiom #1: moving parts need constant maintenance time and costs) - and digital format means easily soft-programmable (and extendable via standard digital ports like USB ports or wireless BT/WiFi port) thus have more custom clock features displayed on just a screen/display than its analog counterpart, such as current room temperature monitoring feature displayed on digital clock's LCD display (exclusively or sharing space), stopwatch/timer on demand (temporarily use clock's LCD display to display the feature), etc.

Thus, the day 1 decimal second (1 md) before the next year (2014, and 1 year = 365 days) can be represented in a full date-time format simply as: [2013.364.999] (YYYY.DDD.dcm)

We can even add more precision in SI magnitude scale such as 1/1000 of a milliday or 1 microday (ud), which is comparable to standard millisecond (1/1000 of a standard second), to represent 1 microday (1 ud) before the next 1st day od 2014: [2013.364.999.999] (YYYY.DDD.dcm.u)

["dcm" is for fractional part of a day: deci/centi/milli-day, works as temporal symbol replacement to standard time symbols: "hms" or hour/minute/second. "YYYY" is the year count and always in a full 4-digit format. "DDD" is day count of the current "YYYY" year.]

'Month'/'Week'-like divisions, a common format standard for religious/seasonal-time based format just like the currently-used Gregorian calendar, can also be applied as necessary for those needing them such as religious groups, conservative (farmer/people) groups, etc - but these options may need separated different coding formats to avoid confusions to the standard UDT coding format.

For example, the "UDT.Religion" coding format may have any of these special "UDT.Alt" format templates: [YYYY-MoY-DoM/dcm.u] (2013-Dec-31/999.999)

[YYYY-MoY-DoM DoW/dcm.u] (2013-Dec-31 Tue/999.999)

("MoY" can be month's count number or a full/shortened name month of the "YYYY" year. "DoM" is day count of the "MMM" month. "DoW" is Day of the Week [Monday-Sunday], in shortened/full name)

Assumed the new remod UDT time format will replace/coexist on the standard one, the suffix "d" for "decimal-day" coding system in "dcm.u" digits template is intentionally not used, just like the standard day-time of "hh:mm:ss.ms" coding system digits template.

 As comparison: 

[9d:9c:9m] or [T999] is 1 decimal second (1 milliday or 1/1000 decimal day) before the next day. [1-digit/unit max]

[23h:59m:59s] or [H235959] is 1 standard second (1/86400 standard day) before the next day. [2-digit/unit max]

I hope this UDT proposal with common simple public use examples will help accelerate decimal date-time adoption rate either from today or in the future (as also wished by SI president/founder years ago), since I knew many people have common basic problems when counting/converting/representing 24h/60m/60s sexagesimal time in current standard to ubiquitous decimal-based systems used today.

==> [Ois1974 @ 2013-12-21 Sat] 114.79.49.125 (talk) 11:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth: Since this user insisted on restoring a similarly strange proposal at Talk:International System of Units after it was removed, I've now attempted to communicate with this user at User talk:114.79.49.227. --Closeapple (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Metric time. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150522083043/http://heuresdumonde.com/histoire-dheure.html?start=2 to http://heuresdumonde.com/histoire-dheure.html?start=2

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 20:59, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Should this article be deleted?
I mean, is "metric time" really even a thing, distinct from SI time or decimal time? I question if the subject is notable. Couldn't the information here be moved to the articles for the second and decimal time, or other articles? IIRC, in the days before Wikipedia there were a bunch of TimeCube-type sites with original research for different versions of "metric time", and this article was originally based upon some of that, but aside from Original research, the subject seems to me to be redundant. --Nike (talk) 08:29, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This article distinguishes metric time from decimal time by saying that the former is for measurement of time intervals, while the latter is for time of day. The metrication of timekeeping is a notable topic, and isn't really a good fit at second. I'm not opposed to merging the topic into some other article, but I don't offhand know where the best place for it would be. This is essentially a historical topic: the modern metric system uses the second as its base unit but there is a long history of other ideas and proposals about how to metrify timekeeping that needs to be covered somewhere.--Srleffler (talk) 16:45, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Definition of the meter
I disagree with this edit. The definition of the meter is off-topic. Defining the meter in terms of the second does not create a metric second. If the proposal had been to define the second as the period of a pendulum of a given length (in metres) then you would be right, but that is not the case.

The paragraph is also misleading. The idea of defining the meter based on a pendulum was proposed and rejected a hundred years before the creation of the metric system. See Metre.-- Srleffler (talk) 16:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree. Constant314 (talk) 17:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Citation needed, as always. Using Wikipedia as a primary source is a big no-no. I have read some of the original work of the commission, and you’re wrong. What Burattini thought in 1675 had no direct effect on the meter in the 1790s. He was not on the commission. In fact, the commission recommended it, Talleyrand introduced it to the National Academy, which adopted it 8 May, 1790. The alternate meridian method had similar issues, such as being specific to where the measurement was made. They ended up deciding, 26 March, 1791, that France was a good stand-in for the entire globe, and defined the meter with an incorrect measurement. But what do I know? See the Mathematical Association of America, I will consider better wording.  14 Germinal year CCXXXI, beech tree day @ 9h 97m 98s PMT Nike (talk) 23:48, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reference. It was an interesting read. You know the history far better than I do. You haven't addressed the question of relevance, though. Defining the meter using a pendulum as proposed would not change the definition of the second. Was a new metric definition of the second proposed to go along with this definition of the meter? The article doesn't mention any.--Srleffler (talk) 03:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's obviously iherent. The two methods yielded two different values of the metre, and thus the rest of the metric system. The second was based on a natural measure, fixed at 1/86400 mean solar day. It was the metre which would have a different definition, not the second. I will also note that, ironically, the current definition of the metre is derived from the second. 15 Germinal year 231 @ 1h 75m 75s PMT. Nike (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, so we agree that the second would have been 1/86400 solar days regardless whether the metre was defined based on a pendulum or the circumference of the Earth. You are presuming that if the pendulum definition of the metre had been chosen it would have required the commission to include the second in the metric system from the start. That is too much speculation to support the statement that the second "was nearly included in the metric system from the start." The only relevance that paragraph has to this article is your speculation that history might have gone differently. That is not good enough.--Srleffler (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree. Please review WP:SYN.  I have been guilty of that previously, which is why I can spot it. Constant314 (talk) 20:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If you think that particular sentence is misleading, what would be better? The rest is well-sourced facts. The dispute seems to be over whether making the second the basis for the meter would make it part of the system, which is just semantics, which I’m willing to compromise on. Unilaterally blanking text which is under discussion is not appropriate. 19 Germinal year 231 @ 9h 72m 63s PMT Nike (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It is not semantics. You are marshalling a set of facts to lead to a conclusion.  That is synthesis and it is not allowed. Constant314 (talk) 00:50, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Since when did Wikipedia abandon “citation needed” tags, discussion and consensus? I didn’t know there was an administrative editor here with the power to violate Wikipedia policies.
 * It’s easy to find sources. The real accusation was synthesis. It was not intended, but I agreed to a change in language. Now it’s being attacked on the basis of relevance. The article is about the relationship between time and the metric system. How is the history of just this not relevant? Which sources say it didn’t belong? 20 Germinal year 231 @ 2h 46m 26s PMT Nike (talk) 05:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What, exactly, is my conclusion? I simply state the facts as they exist. I’m not speculating anything, but just reading the sources. I have no agenda here. I’m not pro-pendulum. 20 Germinal year 231 @ 2h 53m 87s PMT Nike (talk) 05:56, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What would be better is to delete that sentence, because it is disallowed synthesis. You are speculating about what might have happened if the other definition of the metre had been chosen. That is not appropriate. The problem is that once that sentence is deleted, the rest of the paragraph has no reason at all to be in this article. Yes, it's all facts. It's an interesting bit of history. It would fit well at metre, but it is off-topic for this article.--Srleffler (talk) 04:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What, in your opinion, is the topic here? 20 Germinal year 231 @ 2h 64m 98s PMT Nike (talk) 05:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The topic of the article is the measure of time intervals using the metric system, as stated in the lede. The pendulum proposal isn't relevant, since it did not in any way change how time was measured in the metric system. --Srleffler (talk) 06:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It did not change anything, because it was the original plan. The longitude measure changed the definition of the metre “which would be the new system’s fundamental unit.” The metric system does not measure time intervals, as you claim, but defines them just as it does with other units.
 * You keep moving the goal post. As soon as I overcome one objection, you just switch to another. 20 Germinal year 231 @ 3h 25m 23s PMT Nike (talk) 07:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * That paragraph is about the history of the metre. It is relevant to this article.  There was some synthesis.  Now it is gone.  All that is left is a couple of random facts about the metre. Constant314 (talk) 07:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You removed facts in an attempt to make them irrelevant. I could simply add them back, and plaster the article with more facts and sources. Just face it, you’re wrong. You’re merely trying to enforce your personal opinion, without regard to facts. I’ve tried to compromise, but every time I give a millimeter, you take a meter. I’m not going anywhere.
 * As for page numbers, they’re not required, but I added some, anyway. The whole book is online. 20 Germinal year 231 @ 3h 49m 46s PMT Nike (talk) 08:16, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * No, I removed your uncited synthesis of facts from a paragraph that I already felt was irrelevant. If you have a source that says explicitly that adopting the pendulum definition would have "included the second in the metric system from the start" by all means add it. That would resolve this debate. I have not seen anything that suggests that this idea is anything more than your opinion.--Srleffler (talk) 14:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I haven't moved the goal post, just tried different approaches to explain to you the same objection: the connection between the pendulum proposal and "including the second in the metric system" is too tenuous and is an interpolation (synthesis) of the facts by you, and without that connection the paragraph is not relevant to the article. You've tried a bunch of things (which is good) but haven't actually done anything that addresses the core problem. --Srleffler (talk) 14:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Since you claim your objection is to that one statement, which I already compromised on, your argument is moot, so there is not “core problem.” Your feelings are just that, and not facts. I posted about the history of the relationship between the metric system and time, which is the topic of this article. 20 Germinal year 231 @ 6h 79m 56s PMT Nike (talk) 16:10, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Without that one statement, the paragraph is not relevant to this article. That is what we have been saying all along: This paragraph is off-topic. You are trying to include material that is just not relevant.--Srleffler (talk) 16:33, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree. The material is off topic.   Metric time is about using seconds, kilo-seconds, mega-seconds, etc. instead of minutes, hours, days, etc. Constant314 (talk) 21:12, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The offending paragraph has been removed. It has been replaced by exact quotes, without any paraphrasing or speculation. 21 Germinal year 231 @ 4h 7m 47s PMT Nike (talk) 09:38, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * “one fundamental unit (the length of the meter) depend upon another unit (a second of time).” Nike (talk) 09:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * “This is essentially a historical topic: the modern metric system uses the second as its base unit but there is a long history of other ideas and proposals about how to metrify timekeeping that needs to be covered somewhere.--Srleffler (talk) 16:45, 19 April 2019” Nike (talk) 14:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that all synthesis and opinion have been removed. No objection on that basis.  Still though, does it belong in this article?  Why not also add the history of the gram and the ampere? Constant314 (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Because this is not the metric weight or metric current article. It’s the metric time article. See Srleffler’s comment, above. 21 Germinal year 231 at 8h 0m PMT Nike (talk) 19:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It is also not the metric length article. Constant314 (talk) 23:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We were talking about the second, the metric time unit. It’s an about the history of the relationship between time and the rest of the metric system. The original plan would have made the second the base unit for the entire metric system. The meter is currently defined in terms of the second; are you going to remove that, too? What about Gauss? MKS, cgs, SI?
 * Note that the reason given for the using the other meter definition was that they were considering new units of time, a change which was attempted and abandoned. So metric time has a profound effect on the whole metric system. —— 21 Germinal 231 9h85m (PMT) Nike (talk) 23:33, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The second is used to define the ampere. Constant314</b> (talk) 02:06, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Fine. Tell us about the ampere. Nike (talk) 07:14, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Time has only been involved in the definition of the Ampere since 2019. In this year: the charge on an electron (the 'elementary charge') was fixed at exactly 1.602176634×10−19 coulombs in the same year (slightly increased from the previous value by roughly one part in a hundred million). the Ampere is now defined as the passage of 6.241509074×1018 elementary charges (or electrons if you prefer) in exactly one second. The astonishing upshot of this is that if you calculate the velocity of the electrons along a piece of wire, it comes out a around a millimetre per second (the exact value depending on the actual current and wire size)
 * The coulomb used to be defined as one ampere per second prior to 2019 but to avoid a circular definition is now defined in terms of the 'elementary charge' as given above.
 * The previous definition did not involve time. It was defined as the current required when passed through two parallel wires spaced one metre apart to create a force of 2x10-7 Newtons per metre between the wires. 81.153.20.205 (talk) 10:09, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * But force is defined by mass and acceleration and that involves time. But in any case I don't think the history of the ampere or the meter belong in this article. <b style="color: #4400bb;">Constant314</b> (talk) 11:08, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * First, “metric” refers to the metre, as the base unit of the system, so it can be relevant if about the relationship between time and the metre.
 * Next, I’ve actually been thinking abbot the other units for a long time, whose definitions were derived from the metric second. Part of my reasons for rewriting this article many years ago was to educate those who were clamoring for the redefinition of metric time units. One of the main problems with these proposals is that it would require changing all these dependent units. This is a burden too large to overcome. It was considered too difficult to overcome changing one set of existing units in the 1790s, but today it would throw all science and engineering into disarray. Thank you for reminding me. I have some interesting sources on the subject. —24 Germinal year 231 @ 9h 79m (PMT) Nike (talk) 23:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I completely lost sight of that and withdraw my objections to relevance. <b style="color: #4400bb;">Constant314</b> (talk) 23:28, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Your most recent version pulled in one new fact that changes things: that the pendulum proposal was rejected not only because of its variability from place to place but also because it would have made the definition of the meter depend on the second, which was felt to be arbitrary; not fundamental. This is a stronger reason for talking about the pendulum idea than what you presented before, and it is supported by Schwartz's article.

As written, it was much too long for the relevance of the material, and if that was four straight paragraphs of direct quotation not clearly identified as such it would be somewhat plagiaristic. I took a stab at condensing and paraphrasing it. --Srleffler (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I applaud the collaboration. I didn’t want to risk paraphrasing it, myself.
 * But you didn’t note the problem with an arbitrary fundamental unit given in the source, that they were considering new metric time units. New units were, in fact, introduced during year II. — 22 Germinal year 231 3h 5m  (PMT) Nike (talk) 07:11, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

What happened on these dates?
> Microsoft's NTFS FILETIME as multiples of 100 ns since January 1, 1601. VAX/VMS uses the number of 100 ns since November 17, 1858

The current article fails to explain what event happened on 1601.01.01 AD to make it a worthy choice of origo for Microsoft (eg. the debut of Hamlet, prince of Denmark or something like that)? The DEC VAX start date of 1858.11.17 is even more mysterious for the audience, maybe it's related to Darwin? 158.88.16.3 (talk) 14:30, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Not relevant to this article. <b style="color: #4400bb;">Constant314</b> (talk) 15:41, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * These dates are just numerical coincidences which have nothing to do with the metric system. 1601 was the beginning of the first complete 400-year leap cycle in the Gregorian calendar. 1858 is what you get when you subtract 2400000 days from the Julian Day number. Nike (talk) 06:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)