Since this is I’m gonna explain my question the same way.
Imagine there is a time-hating wizard who magically removes all time-keeping instruments like atomic clocks, phones and watches, so there is no way of knowing the time right now. If then we were asked to ‘bring back’ the old time that we used (e.g. so that we start again measuring 12:00 in London exactly when it was 12:00 in London before the wizard) could this be done? Is there something physical constant (like kg or meter) that determines what time of day it is? Or, did someone just say “we start measuring time from now, and I say that it is exactly 14:32…”?
Also, if there is this constant that allows us to know exactly when a certain time is, doesn’t that mean we don’t need atomic clocks and can just compare ourselves to this constant? Idk what this would be but perhaps when the sun is absolutely highest in the sky somewhere?
In: 40
Assuming we remember the units, we could end up with something quite comparable.
Broadly:
Find high-noon (eg: The middle of the day)
Then with any device that can keep a steady count (a metronome and a lot of patience would do it, though if you can automate it in any way that’d be great) you count until you get to the next high-noon.
That’s your basic metro-second count of the day. A Metronome isn’t exactly a second-per-tick, but it’s close enough. You probably have slightly less metro-seconds than there were real seconds because a metronome generally runs slower. This is a good thing because counting seconds would be mind-numbing.
Lets call it 80,000 metro-seconds between two high-noons, it’s probably a more annoying number, but the math is the same.
Now divide that into 24 blocks of 3,333 metro-seconds.
Divide that further into 60 blocks of around 55.5 metro-seconds and you’ve got your Metro-minutes.
55.5 metro-seconds is a minute. Which you know is 60 seconds.
Basic math says that a metro-second averages out at 0.925 seconds.
So now you have a standard for a second, you can use that to build out all your time-keeping infrastructure.
The question then arises for “what year is it?”
That’s a bit harder because all our date-keeping is based on an agreed-upon starting date.
Most of the western world agrees on a date 2,022 years ago as the start of the “Common Era”. You may even see the abbreviation CE sometimes. This is the non-religious direct equivalent of AD and pretty much the same thing.
In computing, we derive our date from Unix-Time. Which takes 01/01/1970 as an arbitrary starting date and counts in milliseconds from that point.
Given the massive upheaval of the Time Wizard’s actions, we might as well restart on 01/01/01 ATW (After Time-Wizard)
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