Wouldn’t it be more logical to celebrate passage of, say, 2^24 seconds (194 days)? Once we’re no longer constrained to human bodies, we can have as many fingers on our hands as we want, so we may as well have 8 or 16.
Sorry, but outside of surface elements (being about time, base ten, the word “second”) I’m not sure what about my proposal you think has been done in decimal time.
There’s nothing particularly special about base ten¹, but I’m also not sure there’s any particular reason to move away from it, much like the second. Base twelve would probably be more convenient for mental arithmetic, but I don’t much expect a shift to occur. If 2^24 seconds would be more logical, I confess I don’t see why—what do you mean by “logical”?
And, like… this is partly about looking to the future, but I can’t just ignore the present. Seconds mean something to people today. A billion seconds means something to people today. 2^24 or 2^30 seconds might mean something to some people, but not as many.
Base 10 is special because every base is base 10. :p
It’s been done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
That aside, what’s so special about base 10?
Wouldn’t it be more logical to celebrate passage of, say, 2^24 seconds (194 days)? Once we’re no longer constrained to human bodies, we can have as many fingers on our hands as we want, so we may as well have 8 or 16.
The objectively correct base is six.
The human lifespan currently is limited to a long: 2^32 = 136 years (google can answer that).
Sorry, but outside of surface elements (being about time, base ten, the word “second”) I’m not sure what about my proposal you think has been done in decimal time.
There’s nothing particularly special about base ten¹, but I’m also not sure there’s any particular reason to move away from it, much like the second. Base twelve would probably be more convenient for mental arithmetic, but I don’t much expect a shift to occur. If 2^24 seconds would be more logical, I confess I don’t see why—what do you mean by “logical”?
And, like… this is partly about looking to the future, but I can’t just ignore the present. Seconds mean something to people today. A billion seconds means something to people today. 2^24 or 2^30 seconds might mean something to some people, but not as many.
Base 10 is special because every base is base 10. :p