Is insomnia the inability to sleep or the ability not to sleep?
Perhaps insomniacs represent the next next stage in our evolution. Perhaps the human race has already begun its transition to a sleepless state.
En Retard: Part II
In part I we were introduced to the r-word movement, discovered the nature of slurs, slang and insults, and we also discredited the assertion that words like retard are unacceptable because they are offensive slurs with a history of clinical use. But we left one question unanswered: why is there so much concern about the use of this word in particular? There are at least three possible explanations for this.
The first reason could be the simple randomness of language. The evolution of terminology is often unpredictable and cannot always be explained. For example, there isn’t a logical reason why it’s okay to call a Caucasian person white or a person of African descent black, but it’s not okay to call an Asian person yellow or a Native American red.
Another possible source for the concern around a specific term could be special interest groups. These organizations champion only a single cause and seek to generate as much support and attention as possible. It could be that there are simply a greater number of groups, or merely more influential groups, dedicated to the eradication of the word retard than most other terms, which leads us to our third and final possible explanation.
Humans have the ability to feel empathy for, and can generate sensitivity on behalf of, a perceived offended party. Our concern for others, especially those we consider vulnerable, allows us to take offense to an insult directed at another person and to a slur with which we have no association. Perhaps the word retard demands greater sensitivity because those with mental disabilities are especially unfit to defend themselves on both the individual and public levels. This would explain the localized sensitivity surrounding some people groups, namely those who were once neglected or persecuted.
Regardless of the cause (or combination of causes), this crusade to banish the word retard from the face of the Earth is not likely to dissipate any time soon. But is this aim even achievable? And if it is, is this a reasonable and permanent solution to the problem? Fortunately, this is not the first time that a term has been officially replaced due to sensitivity. In fact, several successors to the word retard have already been proposed, implemented and eliminated.
The word retard is derived from the French word, which literally translates “to slow or delay,” and as we already discussed, was a clinical term used to describe a person who was mentally underdeveloped. Now let’s try to understand how the evolution of terms progressed.
Based on what we learned about the nature of insults, people likely started to use the term retard as an insult. After all, what better way to attack someone than to infer that they suffer from a mental disability? Either by intent or natural progression, the term handicapped became an acceptable alternative, but it too was eventually used as a verbal attack. Its decline is partially attributed to its association with disabled Civil War veterans who begged on the street. Although this use of the word is not historically corroborated, the negative associations are quite real.
After handicapped came the terms special needs and disabled, which were considered more pleasant and accurate euphemisms, but special needs has since become unacceptable. In an article by Key Ministry, titled Is “Special Needs” Acceptable People First Language? the author argues that,”‘Special’ often carries with it the connotation of separate or segregated,” and goes on to claim that children with disabilities, “are desperate to not be seen as different… who would prefer to fail in school as opposed to be seen as different by their peers.”
The term disabled has also been deemed inappropriate by those on the cutting edge of sensitivity because it defines an individual by their condition. This has lead to the creation of the current label, person [living] with a disability. The idea is that by describing those with disabilities as people first, the disability does not become their identity or defining feature. Here are some examples of how this terminology works:
- Blind person becomes person who is blind or person living with blindness.
- Obese person becomes person who is obese or person living with obesity.
- Drug addict becomes person who is addicted to drugs or person living with drug addiction.
- Mentally disabled person becomes person who has a mental disability or person living with a mental disability.
- Dead person becomes person who is dead or person who is living with death.
Although attempting to protect the dignity of those with disabilities is a noble cause, it seems as though the revision of terminology is a futile endeavor. Sure, we might generate enough awareness and support to have a governing body pass legislation to change official terminology. And sure, we might get the common person to remove a word from their vocabulary, but in the end, no matter what new words are chosen, they will eventually fall into the mouths of those who care nothing for the troubles of others. This is because – and this is the important part – there is no intrinsic good or evil in a grouping of letters or sounds. Words mean whatever we decide they mean, and by abandoning corrupted words, we’re allowing these insensitive, uneducated individuals to determine their meaning.
Another problem with attempting to change language is that by producing long and technical alternative terminology, we’re asking people to be very deliberate in their descriptions of those with disabilities, which isn’t how we talk about any other group. Old people are not living with old age; they’re old. And blonde people are not living with blonde hair; they’re blonde. By using alternate language for groups such as those with disabilities, we’re acknowledging that they are different and should be treated differently, which only fuels the segregation that many are striving to erase.
So if replacing offensive words is not a reasonable solution, what, if anything, can be done? There are actually three potential solutions to this problem, with the first being the option we just explored.
- Banish offensive words and replace them with new ones.
- Stop people from insulting each other.
- Stop taking offence on behalf of others and stop allowing ourselves to be insulted.
We already discussed how the first solution provides only temporary relief from the issue, so what about the other two? Well the ideal answer is actually the second one, but in order for it to succeed, humanity would have to undergo a massive behavioral shift. As we already mentioned in part I, humans learn to insult one another at an early age, and it’s not always done with malicious intent. Insults play a significant role in comedy, business and politics, and when combined with sarcasm, they can even be used to flatter. As a crucial tool of communication, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the end of insults any time soon.
Recent hate crime legislation attempts to address the issue of crimes specifically targeting certain people groups, and there are those who believe that we should apply these principles to protect groups from slurs. Aside from violating the freedom of expression, attempting to legislate language would be a horribly arduous and complex task. Also, the concept of extending special legal protection for some individuals creates a huge problem in terms of consistency; and we can’t have fairness and equality without consistency. If we’re going to retire or ban every term that offends, then there are thousands of words in need of revision.
The third and final option doesn’t really seem like a good solution. After all, allowing something to happen is seldom a feasible approach to prevention. But in this case, it’s actually the best choice and here’s why:
Because we know that we can’t stop insults and because of inherent negative associations with disabilities, along with many other traits and characteristics, insensitive individuals will continue to attack others using these labels, the only element that we can actually control is ourselves.
As we discussed in part I, in order for an insult to be effective, both the speaker and the audience must understand the negative association with the chosen word or phrase. If we call someone a retard, it’s insulting because both parties understand that being retarded is bad. In the same way, calling someone fat or stupid is slanderous because our society identifies obesity and poverty as undesirable qualities. If someone thought that being fat or stupid were somehow desirable traits, then it would be impossible to attack them with these words.
By allowing ourselves to take offense to, or be insulted by, a label, we’re acknowledging the negative association with that people group. The only way we can thwart the endless onslaught of insults is to refuse to recognize the negativity attached to those words, and by extension, the people groups they represent. We must reclaim the destiny of diction from the hands of those who would use it to hurt, and we must recognize that all members of society are of equal value and deserve equal legal protection and public recognition. If we really believe that the disabled with are people first and we don’t wish to segregate them, then we should afford them every and only every right afforded to others, including the dignity of ridicule.
En Retard: Part I
The world is changed. Smoking marijuana is hip, but smoking cigarettes is disgusting. Profanity is simply an expression, but racial slang is bigotry. Today we will be discussing the evolution of language, specifically targeting changes caused by increased sensitivity toward certain terms, namely the word retard.
The website www.r-word.org is dedicated to the eradication of the term retard and offers visitors an opportunity to pledge to never use the word again. It also posts stories submitted by those who have been affected by the word. Here’s one from Mia Kraker:
“I was at recess when someone in my class called my friend the r-word. The r-word is extremely hurtful to many people. I am working to stop the r-word and people all over should be, too.”
Now this story definitely isn’t one that sparks faith in humanity, but it’s interesting that the storyteller is expressing dissatisfaction with the perpetrator’s choice in terminology, not the fact that her friend was publicly berated. Here’s another story, submitted by Maggie Scott:
“…in my hallways at school I hear the people call many people many names including the r-word. But why does our world have to be like this? It doesn’t and I’m ready for a change…”
This person is obviously disappointed that her fellow students use derogatory language, as she should be, but she notes that the term retard is only one of “many names” being thrown around. It seems as though Maggie, like Mia, isn’t so much concerned with name-calling or harassment as she is with the use of the word retard, which causes one to wonder why this word is considered especially offensive.
Ellen Seidman, in her article 5 Things People Don’t Get About the Word “Retard”, makes this statement regarding the term, “…The word ‘retarded’ derives from the term ‘mental retardation.’ Years ago, that was a clinical diagnosis used to describe people with intellectual disability. But words evolve and change meaning, as words tend to do, and the words ‘retard’ and ‘retarded’ have evolved into insults. In 2010, Congress itself replaced ‘mental retardation’ and ‘mentally retarded’ in federal health, education and labor laws with the term ‘intellectual disability.’ The word ‘retarded’ has morphed into a slur – why many people are shunning the word.”
Seidman is correct, the word retard was once a clinical term that has since devolved into a slur. However, her assertion that people are shunning the word because it is slur is not accurate, for there are many commonly used slurs that our society tolerates. Before we continue, let’s establish a definition of the term slur and distinguish it from its cousin, slang.
Slang is casual or informal language that denotes familiarity with the mundane and reduces discomfort with the taboo. Here are some examples:
- Money (coin, cheddar, clams)
- Sex (shag, get lucky)
- Murder (whack, hit, waste)
- Automobile (ride, wheels)
- Cocaine (blow, nose candy, snow)
While slang and slur sometimes overlap, a slur is an offensive term that describes a people group, such as a race or ethnicity. In other words, slur is slang used to insult others by associating them with a type of person, regardless of whether or not the label is accurate.
Unfortunately, this definition is much more broad than we might think. After all, there is no supreme authority determining what is or is’t offensive, for that depends on the audience. Also, if a slur can target any group of people, then this would include every physical, mental, emotional, religious, genetic or social characteristic by which we might be identified. Here’s a list of some groups whose titles are deemed acceptable slurs:
- Nationality
- American (Yankee, redneck)
- Canadian (Canuck, Newfie)
- British (limey, redcoat)
- French (frog)
- German (kraut)
- Physical Condition
- Overweight (fat)
- Underweight (twig, stick)
- Young (child, baby, immature)
- Old
- Crippled (lame)
- Athletic (jock)
- Weak (sissy)
- Intellectual (nerd)
- Blind
- Deaf
- Mute (dumb)
- Alocholic (boozer, wino)
- Drug-addicted (junkie, crackhead)
- Appearance
- Ugly
- Red-haired (ginger)
- Blonde-haired (dumb blonde)
- Bald (cue ball)
- Short (shrimp)
- Acne (crater-face)
- Glasses (four-eyes)
- Mental Condition
- Unintelligent (stupid, idiot, moron, imbecile)
- Schizophrenic (crazy, nut, fruitcake)
- Psychopath (insane, psycho, wacko)
- Depressed (emo)
- Social or Economic Status
- Poor (trailer trash)
- Wealthy (spoiled, filthy rich)
- Uneducated (stupid, dunce)
- Unemployed (deadbeat)
- Unsuccessful (loser, failure)
- Profession
- Police Officer (pig, narc, dick)
- Lawyer (rat, shyster)
- Psychologist (shrink)
- Janitor
- Prostitute (hooker, hoe)
- Used Car Salesperson
- Taxi Driver (cabbie)
- Carnival Employee (carny)
It’s difficult to determine why terms like redneck and redcoat are acceptable, while redskin is considered unacceptable, or why it’s okay to mock someone for wearing glasses, but not for using a wheelchair. Regardless, it’s obvious that using a label or characteristic to attack others is not in itself enough to incur public rejection. Perhaps, then, it’s the fact that retard was once a clinical term that causes the controversy, but the terms idiot, lame, and crazy were also used to describe medical or psychological conditions and are now considered acceptable.
As Maggie Scott’s story revealed, we use a variety of words to insult one another, so what makes retard uniquely objectionable? To answer this question, we must first understand how and why words become insults.
If we ponder classic insults such as fat, poor, stupid or ugly, we realize that they share something in common, and that is an association with negativity. Implicit-association tests reveal that we all harbor unconscious positive and negative sentiments toward certain people groups. The origin of these associations is not always understood, but it’s not hard to imagine why a person would hold a negative view of ugliness or stupidity. The truth, no matter how we dress it up, is that we don’t want to be fat, poor, stupid, ugly or retarded, and this is the foundation for every insult – a negative association between a term and a condition.
As we grow and interact, we absorb and catalog information, whether we’re aware of it or not. Part of this process involves learning which personality traits, professions and body shapes are undesirable. Parents, teachers, friends, magazines, television and movies all reveal expectations and role models as well as examples of failure and corruption. Even at a young age, children are well aware of the values and qualities that their culture deems unacceptable, and they have firmly established negative associations. This is exemplified by the schoolyard bullying and teasing that most children endure.
So what’s the real problem here? Is it that we say words some consider unacceptable, or is it that we use negative characteristics and labels to attack one another? If we’re going to banish retard from our vocabularies, what do we do about all those other slurs, especially the ones that our society deems acceptable?
In part II we’ll find out why there is so much controversy surrounding the word retard and discuss the effectiveness of the r-word movement’s strategy as well as some alternative solutions.
Griddle
What if grids began to speak,
Would this be called gridtalk?
And what if grids could tell the time,
Would they all use gridclocks?
What if grids could blaspheme things,
Would their god be gridmocked?
And what if grids had little shoes,
Would they also wear gridsocks?
What if grids could play music,
Would we call this gridrock?
And what if grids could move around,
Would we say they gridwalked?
‘Cause after all, when a grid get’s stuck,
We all know it’s gridlock.
Sine
Yesterday you woke up from your bed and dressed yourself for the day. In addition to accomplishing the day’s necessary tasks, you ate some food and enjoyed leisure time, possibly with friends or family.
When you woke this morning, you dressed yourself in different clothes, and after accomplishing your daily tasks, ate different food and spent your leisure time in a different way, likely with different people. Why the change? Why didn’t you wear the same clothes, eat the same food and relax the same way as yesterday? Your clothes are still in style, the food tastes the same and your friends and activities are just as interesting. The answer is actually woven into the very nature of the universe: the inevitability of change.
At some point in the distant future, gravity will condense all matter in existence into a singularity. This is likely the end of the universe, after which there will be no more change. But until entropy finally conquers the universe, collapsing all matter and dissipating all energy, everything must always be changing. Particles collide and energy transfers as stars and planets dance and scatter light through space.
Inside the fabric of reality, beneath our subconscious and between the helices of our DNA is the necessity for change. We battle against entropy, attempting to minimize the chaotic nature of universe, but we can’t truly escape it. It’s impossible for anything to remain truly constant, but the closest thing to constant is undulation, and that is what we experience: the sine wave of life.
X can be anything from happiness to hunger, sleepiness to sexual desire, even wealth, fashion, friendship or conflict. The undulation describes each individual, family, city or nation, and it’s accurate on a variety of time scales. It describes our days, weeks, years, lifetime or even our entire history. Here are some common places in which the wave’s undulations can be witnessed:
- A person observed daily: sleep, bathe, get dressed, work, eat, relax, sleep.
- A student observed during a semester: enroll, learn, study, write exams, vacation, enroll.
- A lineage observed during a lifetime: birth, adolescence, adulthood, old age, death, birth.
- A constituency observed through a term of office: elect, celebrate, complain, yearn for change, elect.
Obviously the highs and lows are not always equal, and the undulations are not uniform in length. Sometimes we will experience terrible tragedy or great joy, creating an unusually intense wave. There are also periods of dullness or inactivity, both large and small, in which the waves are so tiny and so fast they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But this steady undulation is generally accurate and does provide a unique view of our existence.
Now it’s true that all things come to an end, so the undulation cannot continue indefinitely. Some argue that after the end of the universe, another big bang will occur and create a new universe, but this idea is based almost entirely on wishful thinking and a poor understanding of the origin of the universe. Regardless, the undulation must eventually end, and we already know how this will end: the same way it began.
The lifespan of any system, entity, event or organization tends to start with a dramatic rise, experience an apex near the center, then decline sharply toward the end. So if we were to zoom out from the sine wave and observe the subject from beginning to end, we would see that the wave is actually part of a much larger parabolic arch.
An example of this parabolic effect would be the sharp rise and eventual decay of satisfaction while eating a meal, or the initial excitement and appreciation for a new vocation, which eventually fades into boredom, apathy and finally termination.
If we zoom in on any sine wave, we can see that there are even smaller undulations that occur during the larger ones, for each experience or undulation is comprised of an infinite number of smaller events, right down to the subatomic level.
These waves reflect the less significant fluctuations that occur throughout an experience. Here are some examples:
- A mouth observed during a meal: bite, chew, swallow, drink, wipe, bite.
- A student observed during a study session: focus, read, get distracted, take a break, focus.
- A mother observed during childbirth: push, wonder when it’s over, breathe, push.
- A politician observed during a campaign: do an interview, give a speech, shake hands, kiss a baby, travel, do an interview.
As individuals, much of our time and energy is dedicated to the satisfaction of temporary urges – urges that return again and again. Most of us derive a great deal of satisfaction from appeasing these requirements, and some even extract meaning and identity through this process. After all, without constant cravings for food, sleep, sex, fun and friends, how would we spend our time?
Lack of appetite for food, sex and social interaction is often a sign of illness, for no healthy person would choose to avoid these things. But if there was a procedure that eliminated these urges without compromising health, such as a pill that eliminated the need for sleep, it’s likely that few would be frantic to sign up.
There are those who would describe this view of existence as nihilistic or depressing and argue that there are more noble aims, such as helping those in need. But is helping others not simply assisting them in satisfying their own temporary cravings? By devoting ourselves to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, befriending the lonely or eliminating disease, we are affirming the paramount importance of food, clothing, friends or health. And while we may improve quality of life, the formerly in need are not exempt from the undulations of life and its inevitable parabolic end.
Those who preach salvation would likely contend that the true purpose of life is not found in the satisfaction of needs (or even the needs of others), but in the glorification of a deity and eventual perfection of existence in the afterlife. But glorifying a deity is merely providing satisfaction to a being that craves glory, and most religions promise an afterlife that fulfills our needs and desires with feasts, kingdoms, virgins and gold. And if heaven is merely dedicated to the eternal gratification of a deity and of our own Earthly appetite, does this not mean that we, like our deities, are destined to be eternal consumers?
Time Math: Part III
Although we’ve made significant progress unraveling the mysteries of time in parts I and II, there are a few steps yet untaken. Leap years, the varying mass and rotation of the Earth, daylight savings time and time zones all serve to disrupt the metric order and should either be corrected or eliminated.
First let’s talk about the length of a year. It actually takes around 365.242375 days for the Earth to complete one revolution around the Sun, which means that we need to somehow account for the extra .242375 days left over at the end of each year. Right now, we do this by adding an extra day to the calendar. These 366-day years are called leap years. Every four years we have a leap year, unless the year is divisible by 100, in which case we skip the extra day. However, if the year is divisible by 400, then we ignore the previous rule and add the 366th day. This system of leap years only accounts for an extra .2425 days per year, which means that every 8,000 years we need to skip a leap year. And as we already know, there are certainly more decimal places requiring us to make even more refined adjustments.
Part of the purpose for creating a metric time system is consistency, so having our years fluctuate in length is not something we can accept. There have been several proposed solutions to this issue, but the simplest one is to extend the length of each day. In order to make up the .242375 days, we must make each day .00066404 days longer (about 66.4 metric seconds). However, instead of making each day 100,066.404 metric seconds long, we can simply extend the duration of a metric second by.066404%, which would mean that the time between each tick on the metric clock is now .86057 standard seconds. But even if we make all these adjustments, there is yes another problem: the mass and rotation of the Earth is not constant.
Tidal friction and shifts in the Earth’s core shorten or lengthen the day. A major earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 is said to have shortened the day by 3 microseconds or about 30 metric nanodays. The mass of our planet is also changing, with thousands of kilograms of meteorites and space dust falling to Earth each year, and a massive amount of hydrogen, helium and astronauts constantly escaping our atmosphere. Changes in mass effect the gravitational pull of the Earth on the Moon, and of the Sun on the Earth. Although these changes are slight, they will eventually make a difference. Given the current rate of change in the Earth’s rotation, an increase of .000017 seconds per day each year, in 1 billion years our days will be 28.72 hours long, and our years will be 305 days. Applying the solution we reached above, we will slowly increase the duration of our second to keep our units in base 10, and in the year 957,590,248 AD, 1 metric second will be exactly 1 standard second in duration.
Now let’s talk about daylight savings time. It’s dumb and should be destroyed.
Another obstacle in the implementation of a consistent metric time system is time zones. Time zones exist because each point on the globe has its own solar time – the time of day according to the position of the Sun in the sky – and we all want to understand time in the same way. After all, how strange would it be to eat lunch at midnight or watch sunset at 6:00 AM? And regardless of whether we recognize it, the various populations of the world are existing at different points in their day.
But time zones come at a price. They make long-distance travel and communication more complicated, since we’re always doing math to determine the difference in time between ourselves and the our target. Although this is useful in ensuring that we don’t wake our relatives by calling them at night, the idea that the whole world is existing at different times is not accurate. We may be at different points relative to the Sun, but the events in Beijing are not happening 12 hours before the events in New York. If someone takes a plane from Beijing to New York, they will land at about the same time they left. No, they didn’t travel back in time by merely flying around the Earth, since only Superman can do that.
So what’s the solution to the problem of time zones? If we pretend that they don’t exist, we’re ignoring the experiential component of time. But if we incorporate them, then we’re creating an inconsistent time system. For an answer, let’s take a look at how we deal with seasons.
Australians experience their summer from December to February, months that much of the world would associate with winter. Because the Earth is tilted on its axis, those south of the equator experience the seasons differently than those who dwell north of it. But we don’t change the names of months or seasons depending on our location, so why would we change the time? As with seasons, let’s allow each person create their own associations with time.
So if there’s no time zones, then how do we know the time in relation to the Sun in other parts other world? Instead of using inaccurate zones that are heavily influenced by geological and geographical borders, we could simply add a numerical affix to indicate the local solar time, indicating the precise solar time based on longitude. Here’s an example of the time in New York City shown in both standard time and metric time with a local solar time affix:
January 23, 6:27 AM Eastern Time
22.268 (-2.056)
New York City resides at approximately 74 degrees latitude, meaning that it’s about 20.56% of the Earth’s surface away from the prime meridian. This puts New York City’s time at minus 4 hours and 56 minutes standard time, or -2.056 metric hours.
But there’s a problem. Deciding the which part of the globe experiences morning at metric time 0 is completely arbitrary, as there isn’t actually an east or west side of the Earth. In other words, the Earth’s rotation never stops and therefore has no beginning or end. This also brings up the issue of the new year as well, since there isn’t a moment of origin to the Earth’s revolutions. So how do we decide when our days and years begin? And while we’re at it, when was year 1?
The answer, unfortunately, is that there is no criteria we can use to determine the true time to start our days and years. History, however, could obviously start at year 1 if we knew when that was. But since our understanding of the age of the universe is subject to prevailing interpretation and limited data. And since we cannot know this for certain, we must choose a point of reference – a position on the globe, a time in history and a place in Earth’s orbit from which we may measure. Since reform is difficult to implement, we might as well borrow the current points of reference: the Greenwich Meridian, January 1 and the birth of Christ (at year 0).
Of course, assigning a year in history to 0 means that time before that point is negative. But unless we know the precise moment that our universe came into existence, we must compromise.
Now that we’ve got everything wrapped up, let’s go back to those problems in part I and answer the last question using both standard and metric time. The question was, “how many seconds are between 5:19:31 PM on September 5, 231 BC in Rome and 3:26:04 AM on August 22, 1746 in Central China?”
First, in standard time:
- 5 hours + 12 hours = 17 hours
- 17 hours * 60 minutes * 60 minutes = 61,200 seconds
- 61,200 seconds + 19 minutes * 60 seconds + 31 seconds = 62,371 seconds
- 30 days – 5 days = 25 days
- 25 days + 31 days + 30 days + 31 days + 31 days + 28 days + 31 days + 30 days + 31 days + 30 days + 31 days + 22 days = 351 days
- 1746 years + 231 years = 1977 years
- 365.2425 days * 1977 years + 351 days = 722,435.4225 days
- 3 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds = 10,800 seconds
- 10,800 seconds + 26 minutes * 60 seconds + 4 seconds = 12,364 seconds
- (8 – 1) hours * 60 minutes * 60 minutes = 25,200 seconds
- 722,436.4225 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds + 32,371 seconds + 12,364 seconds + 25,200 = 62,418,520,439 seconds
And now in metric time:
- 10 hours – 7.21667 hours * 100 minutes * 100 seconds = 27833.33 seconds
- 365 days – 248 days + 234 = 117 days
- 1746 years + 231 years + 1 year = 1978 years
- 1978 years * 365 days + 351 days = 722,321 days
- 1.431 hours * 100 minutes * 100 seconds = 14,310 seconds
- 722,321 days * 10 hours * 100 minutes * 100 seconds + 27833.33 seconds + 14,310 seconds = 72,232,142,143.33 seconds
It’s easy to see that the metric system allows for much simpler calculations, and would be even more simple if the problem was written in metric time. Click here to see the answers for all of the problems.
So there’s no more Mondays, no more March, no more AM and no more time zones. Time starts at 0 and a metric second is 10 microdays, which is about .86 standard seconds long. This is the future of time measurement, and if you don’t like shorter seconds, freeze yourself and ask to be reanimated in 957,590,248.
Time Math: Part II
French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet declared that the metric system would be, “for all people for all time,” but time, ironically, is the one subject that has not been transformed by the metric system. In part I we discussed how math is made much more difficult when working with units of measure that don’t have a base of 10. Now we’ll talk about why metric time is such a uniquely complex concept.
In order to implement the metric system, we must simply choose a base unit for measurement and apply the metric prefixes. To measure length, for example, we simply choose an arbitrary distance, like a meter, and then scale out from it in multiples of ten. The base unit could be any size, but it’s helpful to select a measurement that we can relate to easily. It could be argued that inches and pounds are better base units than meters and grams, since we can more easily and accurately convey their size.
Choosing a base unit for mass, volume and distance is easy because we can just make up their duration. However, time has the unique and complicated quality of being derived from observable constants. We cannot choose the length of a day, for a day is based on the rotation of the Earth. If we were forced to use the day as our base unit for metric time, it wouldn’t be a serious problem, but time is actually based on more than one constant. Let’s take a look at each of the standard units of time and see which ones are arbitrary and which are fixed.
- Year: fixed, one revolution of the Earth around the Sun.
- Season: arbitrary, 1/4 of a year.
- Month: arbitrary, approximately 30 days or 1/12 of a year.
- Lunar month: fixed, approximately 27 days.
- Week: arbitrary, 7 days or approximately 1/4 of a month.
- Day: fixed, one rotation of the Earth on its axis.
- Hour: arbitrary, 1/24 of a day.
- Minute: arbitrary, 1/60 of an hour.
- Second: arbitrary, 1/60 of a minute.
As we can see, most of the units used to measure time are constructs of our own design, with years, days and lunar months deriving their duration from the movement and rotation of the Earth, Sun and Moon. The problem here not that there is a fixed unit of measure, but that there are multiple fixed units that do not factor into numbers conducive to a metric (base 10) numeric system. Metric systems are founded on the multiplication of a single unit in a decimal pattern, but a day is 1/365 of a year, and both units are necessary. Now we find ourselves in a difficult situation.
With time, we do not have the luxury of choosing a unit to construct a metric system around. Since both days and years are fixed and prove quite necessary for keeping time, we are forced to incorporate two units. This produces an aberration that prevents a pure metric system from being implemented. Although we may not be able to achieve a perfect system, this doesn’t mean that we should accept a terrible one. Let’s see if we can come up with something that at least improves on standard time and allows us to solve some of the problems posed in part I more easily.
First of all, we must choose what unit our system should be based around. Because we must incorporate both the day and the year, we are forced to choose one of these two units. Since the length of a day is more easily communicated, though not as easily as a second, let’s go with that. Before we continue, let’s take a look at how the units in our current time system scale based on a day.
Aside from the massive inconsistencies displayed above, it’s worth noting that the duration of the units range from 10^-5 to 10^3 days. This is because the length of a day is actually quite large in comparison to the volume of a liter, as strange as that sounds. If we were to create an arbitrary unit of time on which to base a time system, we wouldn’t make it a day, for a day takes an entire day to happen. We would probably choose a duration somewhere between a second and a minute, likely ranging from 2 to 6 seconds. Unfortunately we’re stuck with a day, so we’ll have to work from there.
In order to have the system function in multiples of ten, we must change the length all arbitrary units. We also need to add units near the lower end to fill in the gaps in order to keep seconds, minutes and hours relatively similar to their current duration. Some have suggested using the names like chron and tick, so let’s go with that.
But should we really be adding more names for units of time? In order to remain consistent with metric measurement, we should abandon the naming of each individual unit, accept the day as the base unit and the year as an anomaly. Now let’s compare the new day-based metric units to the old standard ones.
So according to metric time, a second is now .86 seconds. This seems like a difficult change to adopt, but it might help to start counting with Missouri instead of Mississippi. Another problem could be that we are used to counting time using many different units. In standard time we use measurements like 15 minutes and half an hour, but it seems odd to say 15 millidays or half a deciday. The way time is written also needs to change. In the past, clocks would read 6:15, which is 6.25 hours or .26 of the day. But 6:15 in metric time is 6.15 hours or .615 of the day. So how to we communicate metric time?
There are many different ways to write the date and time in our current system. Here’s a popular choice:
Monday, December 31, 11:59 and 59 seconds PM
Notice that we often use the specific name of the day and month, but we never indicate the week. The date is also written in reverse order of time, which can be confusing. Here’s another example of a more uniform way to write the same time:
12:31:23:59:59
This format is difficult to understand, for it doesn’t tell us which digits are what units. If we were to speak it out loud it would sound like this:
12 months, 31 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds
Since the base of the units varies, it may not be obvious that the following time occurs just one second later:
01:01:00:00:00
It’s worth noting that the month and day are both automatically bumped to the first, despite never counting past zero – yet another inconsistency. In metric time, we don’t have to keep track of seconds, minutes, hours, weeks and months, since we’re only measuring time in days and years. Here’s the first example written again in metric time:
365:9:9:99
Said aloud in standard time, it reads:
365 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes and 99 seconds
Remember that there are 100 seconds in a minute when using unit names taken from standard time. If we were to simply use one unit of measure, the day, then metric time would look like this:
365.9999
And then the time one second later:
0
That’s right, one second after midnight on December 31 would be 0 in metric time. Pretty cool, huh? Unfortunately, this doesn’t solve all of our time problems, since we still have daylight savings time, leap years and time zones. We’ll explore how these mechanics work in part III and attempt to resolve them peacefully.
Time Math: Part I
Think you’re good with numbers? Think that addition and subtraction are simple? Actually, it’s likely that you’re only capable of performing arithmetic when operating within the decimal numerical system.
Whether by nature or nurture, our minds are conditioned to think in base 10, which explains why some anniversaries are more significant than others. Binary and hexadecimal are examples of numeric systems that do not have a base of 10, but we don’t need to enter those worlds in order to encounter difficulties, for we regularly deal with units of measure that do not scale by tens. Let’s look at some examples.
How many inches tall is a 6.25 foot person? Chances are the answer didn’t immediately spring into your mind, so you did some simple math to find the answer.
6 * 12 + .25 * 12 = 75
But what if we have to deal with a more complex problem, like 5 miles, 61 yards and 2 feet minus 10,000 inches?
(5 * 5,280 + 61 * 3 + 2) * 12 – 10,000 = 309,020
Suddenly the impracticality of the imperial system becomes apparent, and the metric option seems like an attractive alternative. Although the metric system makes measuring mass, volume and distance quite simple, we have yet to devise a viable solution for time measurement. Time is by far the most perplexing system of measurement for a number of reasons.
First, the base of the units of time vary. This is why entering 75 on your microwave will cook your food 15 seconds longer than entering 100. This is not a problem unique to time, but the amount of variation here is extreme. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, around 4.33 weeks in a month and 12 months in a year. In addition to these variations, most of the world uses a 12-hour clock, which means that a day is made up of a hidden base 12 unit. To complicate things even further, the term day may refer either to a 24-hour period or only a section of the same period between sunrise and sunset.
The second reason for the complication is that the units of time are not uniform in duration. Although the smaller units don’t vary, the length of months and years does change. A month can be anywhere from 28 to 31 days, and a year, though usually 365 days, is sometimes 366. A day can also vary in duration. In nations that use daylight savings time, one day every year is 23 hours long and another is 25 hours. On top of all that, time changes depending on where and when we are. Time zones make keeping time difficult during travel and also cause many people to miss their favorite television programs. These inconsistencies may not seem strange, but if we were told that a foot wasn’t always 12 inches or a kilogram wasn’t always 1,000 grams, we would surely question it.
Third and finally, humans share a close link with time, and standard time is our first language. However, unlike our relationship with other dimensions, velocity and direction through time can not yet be altered. Because of this, our behavior is influenced heavily by the time of day, the day of the week and the month of the year. Our relationship with time is part of the reason why it’s so difficult to change the system (yet we are somehow able to suddenly decide that it’s an hour in the future during daylight savings time).
In light of the intricate and unique nature of time, let’s look at progressively difficult series of problems in order to understand just how challenging time math can be.
- How many minutes are in November?
- How many hours are between 3:00 AM and 7:00 PM?
- How many days are between July 3 and September 19?
- How many hours are between 5:00 PM on Monday and 9:00 AM on Wednesday?
- If January 14th is a Wednesday, then what day of the week is February 5th?
- How many minutes are between 11:43 AM on January 3 and 1:17 PM on November 19?
- What time is 1,000,000 seconds after 10:10 PM on January 1?
- How many seconds are between 5:19:31 PM on September 5, 231 BC in Rome and 3:26:04 AM on August 22, 1746 in Central China?
Doing math with time in our current system is extremely convoluted. However, metric time isn’t the quick fix that it is for other units. We’ll explore some possible solutions in part II.