Time Decimalisation

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SlabTime was decimalised at the exact moment it left orbit (see PD), there being no further reason to link personal sleep/wake cycles to what was already an inappropriately enforced day/night routine back on Earth.

History

Circadian rhythm related sleep disorders had been growing at an alarming rate since the mid 20th century[1]. By the end of the 21st Century more than 50% of worldwide workers had 'night jobs' and were heartily fed up with not being able to talk to their banks and having to drag themselves out of their beds at bloody nine AM to take deliveries from chirpy delivery guys who had already been up since dawn and had a special 'look' for those who clearly weren't hyperactive 'morning people'. Experimenters had discovered, as far back as the 1980's, that when deprived of any clues as to the day/night cycle, many people quickly settled into an approximate 27 hour rhythm. Many lower order mammals displayed remarkable natural resonance with the 27 hour cycle[2] even at the level of cell-cultured neurons confined to a Petri Dish.

Clearly, something was wrong. Typical sayings, quotations and common phrases indicated the popular knowledge of the day;

  • I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired
  • There are not enough hours in the day
  • Night Owls

Like all common knowledge, it came under IRAKi scrutiny. Decimalisation of time was actually implemented by company for a few weeks during 2068 but after almost two months, none of their employees had any idea who was coming or going and when they could or couldn't hold any meetings. Although Milus Blondel considered this a perfect arrangement, the board revolted and the whole scheme was dropped.

Explanatory Theories

There are two main hypotheses for the 27 hour cycle;

  • The Earth has encountered several catastrophic meteor events during it's history and it is possible that these impacts may have had the effect of increasing the angular velocity of the planet and thereby shortening the day. However for this circadian rhythm to still be part of our genetic memory, would require underlying human behavioural patterns to remain unchanged for more than 250 million years. [1]
  • The human soul comes from a planet with a 27 hour day/night cycle.[2]

Base units

The SI unit of time is the second (s). By the time (sic) Slab left Earth it was just way too complicated to change that unit, so Slab seconds and Earth seconds are the same. Changing this would have meant such an unbelievable amount of messing around with equations that the physicists were prepared to boycott Slab unless the SI second was adopted. And we had to have the physicists - we love you guys - honest.

Unit Slab Earth
second (s) 1 1
minute 100 s 60 s
hour 10 60
day 10 24


Controversy

While there are many well documented, biological reasons for the length of the SlabDay, it has been frequently pointed out that the extra hours were all added during 'peak time' which greatly benefited the media who had been lobbying for longer peak time slots on Earth for decades.

The fact that time decimalisation was sponsored by media conglomerates has never been disputed.

References

  1. Considered about as likely as getting any sense out of DMHII(I).
  2. Considered Blocks- recent investigation has shown that Home isn't actually a planet at all, but some form of gaseous nebula which rules out a day/night cycle completely.


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