6 on Top - A new simplified logical way of keeping time!

I find military time works very well, but nice idea.

You should *totally* franchise this to the Time Cube guy.

But in all seriousness, "sun and moon" don't really seem to make a lot of sense in higher latitudes where the sun's only out for 9ish hours in the winter.

Some things you just can't change.......Time, being one.

Military..... simplest for me and mine.

al2o3cr said:

You should *totally* franchise this to the Time Cube guy.

But in all seriousness, "sun and moon" don't really seem to make a lot of sense in higher latitudes where the sun's only out for 9ish hours in the winter.

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Plus the days still start at 00.00?! So all thats changed is the 6 is on top. And I get up at 7

So what do I write if I want someone to be at a location at 7:00 in the morning?

Digital clocks don't have this problem.

Actually, I think the 12 is on top because that is also 'zero'. Noon was the one moment you could measure accurately without mechanical means - so that became the starting point - the 'zero'. Note that one hour after noon you have the 1, and then the 2 etc.

I suspect they chose to show 12 hours on a clock simply because fitting 24 numerals on a face made it difficult to see. I don't believe 'midnight' really had any particular significance until it also became a 'zero' point due to the two 12 hour cycles.

Of course, this must be true because it is my personal opinion, and not all backed up by actually looking up the topic with Google.

Personally, the 24 hour (used by the military, as well as - well - a great deal of the civilian population of the rest of the world) clock makes the most sense, imho. The new date starts at midnight with 'zero', and the term "twelve noon" is retained.

What would make more sense would be to decimalize that clock. But I don't see that happening. Partly because you can't extend it to encompass a year. How do you decimalize 365.25 days? And weeks. Nobody is ever going to be able to change a week from 7 days to anything else. It's habit. It's in the culture and the language. It's absolutely entrenched in several major religions.

This is a little pet peeve. It would be so much easer it time were "metric". A 20 hour day with 100 minutes and a 100 seconds.

In business you are always converting time to decimal format. So 1:38:30=1.64 and 4:46=4.93.

24 hour clock

Mackilroy said:

I find military time works very well, but nice idea.

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EVERY child in Elementary School in Europe as well as the middle East
and Russia...learns to tell time using a 24 hour clock...
America always goes it own way....telling time....english measurement
vs metric....and its part of the conservative way of thinking in this nation.
So U have to ask yourself...does it serve the nation? I think NOT.

al2o3cr said:

But in all seriousness, "sun and moon" don't really seem to make a lot of sense in higher latitudes where the sun's only out for 9ish hours in the winter.

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...and it's a major change for phrases like "top of the hour", etc.

Interesting idea but good luck changing the world. Time isn't something that's really broken and "AM and PM are dinosaurs" is more than a bit of hyperbole IMO.

palmharbor said:

EVERY child in Elementary School in Europe as well as the middle East
and Russia...learns to tell time using a 24 hour clock...
America always goes it own way....telling time....english measurement
vs metric....and its part of the conservative way of thinking in this nation.
So U have to ask yourself...does it serve the nation? I think NOT.

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Seeing as you're not disagreeing with me, I don't know why you bothered to make this post.

Also, Puzzlemaker, do you know what AM and PM stand for?

I use “military time” for all work on the computer. But 40 years ago in the Navy, we always used Zulu time (UTC 0 hour). That meant whereever we were in the world, everyone involved in military used the same time reference. Solved many problems.

exegete77 said:

I use “military time” for all work on the computer. But 40 years ago in the Navy, we always used Zulu time (UTC 0 hour). That meant whereever we were in the world, everyone involved in military used the same time reference. Solved many problems.

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Those of us who are pilots use UTC as well.

/Jim

What about Hammer Time?

Puzzlemaker said:

...
I am really surprised Apple would try to launch iWatch. I guess the combination of watch and the functionality of an iPod make the effort worth while.
...

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At the risk of taking this off course... but we don't know at all that Apple is launching an iWatch. There are no announcements from Apple. Though with leaks, I do believe that are coming out with 'something'. My suspicion is that any similarity with a watch end with it being on your wrist. I think it will be a really handy interface for whatever device is in your pocket.

So - as just one example - if you are listening to music on your iPod you can leave the iPod in your pocket and simply tap the face of the thing on your wrist to skip the song, set the volume, etc. It will also act as an alert feature - perhaps buzzing or flashing to tell you you need to check your mail, etc etc. Oh...and, if you ask it to ... it will tell you what time it is.

By the way.. it is not technically "military time" - it is the 24 hour clock. Which most of world outside of the USA and Canada (except for Quebec which does use the 24 hour clock) uses at a civilian level.

Also, one didn't need to check the accuracy of a sundial very often. Once that hunk of stone was set it wasn't going anywhere. The point of using noon is that you could create a sundial anywhere you were by simply sticking a stick in the ground, wait for noon (Sun overhead) and then start counting from that point. One hour past noon became One O'Clock.... one hour past the the time I can determine anywhere. Every little hamlet had it's own time, by the way, until a Canadian invented time zones... too many of us were missing the start of the hockey games before we standardized ... but that is another story.

Puzzlemaker said:

Would like to start a discussion on one of the biggest blunders ever committed by our ancestors. Time keeping! Explain AM and PM to a five year old and you will understand why.

You have a sundial in front of you. Now the best building for everyone in your medieval village to see the exact time would be the church. Mechanical movements now are good enough to keep time. So call the stone mason in to punch a hole through the steeple wall drag the sundial (freshly made hole where the dial use to be) with a pulley system up, mortar it in and push the bar through hook up the clock mechanism done. Everyone can now see what time it is.

This is probably the way the 12 ended on top of all our clocks.

Now what I am proposing is to place the " 6 on Top" instead of the twelve, turning time literally on its head. So now you have daylight and darkness in 12 hour chunks that don't cut the day or night in half using AM and PM.

Try it out in real time. The app (6 on Top) is free for you to download.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/6-0n-top/id431473891?mt=12

Warning: it takes a 24 hour period to digest the change.

An open discussion would be awesome. I am the developer of the app.

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Even thinking about this is a huge waste of time.Ironic isn't it?