Rob Seaman scripsit:
> A second is one sixtieth of a minute, which is one sixtieth of an
> hour, which is one twenty-fourth of a solar day because that is what
> six billion people think. That a second is also some obscure SI
> definition might be of interest to folks with an oversize volume from
> the CRC Press on their shelf - but this is certainly not the most
> frequently relied upon definition for the word "second" even when
> restricted to its meaning(s) as a unit of time.
You keep talking as if people always lived by solar time. I have demonstrated
repeatedly that they don't, and from now on will just say "Kashi" in response
to this argument.
Furthermore, popular uses of time are just as likely to be interval time as
time of day. To hard-boil an egg requires five minutes. Are we going to
say, in the far future when the Earth rotates in 10^5 SI seconds,
that eggs now boil in four minutes?
--
Only do what only you can do. John Cowan <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
--Edsger W. Dijkstra's advice http://www.reutershealth.com
to a student in search of a thesis http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Received on Fri Aug 05 2005 - 10:23:41 PDT