Universal time

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

Is there a universal time? Let me explain. is there a "timezone" that everyone can relate to not relevant to where they happen to be on the earth? Random though but doggonit I am curious.

[Ribky]

Like... just going on Greenwich Mean Time?

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

I suppose. It just occured to me as I was thinking about science fiction that with mutliple planets would there be universal time that everyone used, as the day/night cycle became mostly obsolete.

[Ribky]

Oh, I took universal on a much smaller scale. I don't know how one would do that.

[BinoAl]

Oh, I took universal on a much smaller scale. I don't know how one would do that.

Simple, use Planck time as the smallest unit :D
...
Of course, relativity would throw things out of sync

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

This is what happens When I spend an afternoon on TV tropes.
Now I am going to have to write something...

ah yes relativity. gotta love it

[crazybrit]

Pilots use Zulu time correct?
I'm so ignorant on this matter myself.

[Ribky]

Pilots use Zulu time correct?
I'm so ignorant on this matter myself.

Yes they do, Zulu time is equivalent to GMT. I am not ignorant in this matter :)

[crazybrit]

Pilots use Zulu time correct?
I'm so ignorant on this matter myself.

Yes they do, Zulu time is equivalent to GMT. I am not ignorant in this matter :)

Ah cool beans! I learn something new once a week... er I mean day.

[kamshaft1]

I do know that astronomers use Universal Time.

[DaveYanakov]

Time of day is only meaningful on a local level so you would adjust your clock to the planet you are on or orbiting. As far as calendars, you would need two. A local one that made any kind of sense at all and one standard, probably based on that of the homeworld.

[Poppycocks]

Time of day is only meaningful on a local level so you would adjust your clock to the planet you are on or orbiting. As far as calendars, you would need two. A local one that made any kind of sense at all and one standard, probably based on that of the homeworld.

Like the Mayan calendar?

[Itamarcu]

Time of day is only meaningful on a local level so you would adjust your clock to the planet you are on or orbiting. As far as calendars, you would need two. A local one that made any kind of sense at all and one standard, probably based on that of the homeworld.

IMO, the world will move into polyphasic sleep patterns (Everyman, Uberman, etc.) so there will be little to no reason to have a local time. A universal time should be fine, and relativity shouldn't be a problem - just make sure your spaceship's clock speeds up whenever the ship speeds up, and vice versa.

[Haidaes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time
Here you can find a few universal approches for measuring time, but thanks to Einstein you probably will have a hard time to find a time standard that you can use everywhere in the universe :). Should we ever activley start colonizing other worlds we will probably stick to earth time, because it is a quite natural cycle for our species (there is hardly a point in adopting to 80 hour days or 10 hour days).

Btw you might wanna look up the definition of a second, gives you quite the impression how arbitrary the whole thing is ;).

[Horizon]

I feel as though I should point you at this.
Point is, universal time is confusing and convoluted, or dumbed down and nearly uesless.

[Siege Wizard]

And a universal length? Don't tell me about light years because you are saying that a year is universal and it isn't as you've already said. There's no way to measure space or time universally, there's only ways to make other undestand what you mean while comunicating.

[BinoAl]

IMO, the world will move into polyphasic sleep patterns (Everyman, Uberman, etc.) so there will be little to no reason to have a local time. A universal time should be fine, and relativity shouldn't be a problem - just make sure your spaceship's clock speeds up whenever the ship speeds up, and vice versa.

That would be pretty bad... Bi-phasic sleep schedules are what humans naturally tend toward, but a lot of people can't handle polyphasic sleep, based on diet, age, and a few other factors

[Ultionis]

I think it's just one of those "the boss decides" situations, as none of it really matters. In the Warhammer 40K novels, all time is measured by Terran standards, because well that's the cradle of Mankind and where the Emperor resides. But honestly if you wanted to you could change it so time was measured in bacon, and it still wouldn't really matter. Everything would still just be relatively measured - to bacon.

The same applies to monetary value and economics, the bills in your wallet (or lack therof) are still just ink on paper, and it's worth something because some asshole says so, and he's "the boss".

[simanick]

Oh, I took universal on a much smaller scale. I don't know how one would do that.

Simple, use Planck time as the smallest unit :D
...
Of course, relativity would throw things out of sync

planck space which is the smallest unit of space and relativity are used to account for this so time invariance does exist just needs a distance from location to be useable.

[Horizon]

Or, people could have time zones, like we do now.

[Mason11987]

The same applies to monetary value and economics, the bills in your wallet (or lack therof) are still just ink on paper, and it's worth something because some asshole says so, and he's "the boss".

Well... no not really. Money is worth money because people accept it for goods and services. It's not at all because the boss says so, it's because everyone everywhere says so. If "the boss" starts overprinting it we can each independently (without any input from the boss) decide that dollars are worth half as much, and it'll be so.

[Ultionis]

The same applies to monetary value and economics, the bills in your wallet (or lack therof) are still just ink on paper, and it's worth something because some asshole says so, and he's "the boss".

Well... no not really. Money is worth money because people accept it for goods and services. It's not at all because the boss says so, it's because everyone everywhere says so. If "the boss" starts overprinting it we can each independently (without any input from the boss) decide that dollars are worth half as much, and it'll be so.

My point is that the numbers themselves are arbitrary, and only matter when they need to stay relevant to everything else. Their value conforms to some ideal, be it the boss or just the general public's idea thereof. In some countries you can be a millionaire and still not afford to buy a bread.

For universal time to work, the same is applied. Everyone just needs to conform to some made up system, whether logical or not. At the earth's poles the sun could be up for what, 6 months? Still it's not like they have a 2-day calendar.

[Horizon]

TIME. ZONES.

[Ultionis]

TIME. ZONES.

For time zones to work, you still need to conform to the 24 hour clock :P

[Horizon]

*facepalm*
Alright, let's try this again... Let's say there's a hypothetical planet called Cumulus, with a rotation cycle of 30 hours. Then the Cumulan time zone involves 30 hours.