Of Bees and Time

Letter of the Week:

I have tossed this idea around for quite some time, but it involves more than just designing a new clock.

Firstly, in your example, if the metric minute was one crang, then one hour would be one hectocrang (100 crangs), not one decacrang. The prefix deca is 10; the prefix hecto is 100. That would make one day equal one kilocrang.

The International Metric System defines a second as: the unit for the measurement of time, being the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. This would have to be redefined; and with one centicrang equalling .864 of the old second, it would work out to 7 942 433 849.28 periods of the radiation . . . etc, not an even number.

Then there are all the units of measurement that now are based on some connection to a second.

One basic unit being the metre (m), which is defined as "the unit for the measurement of length, being a length equal to the distance travelled by light in a vacuum during 1/299 792 458 of a second".

Then there are seven derived units of measurement:

• newton (N) - "the force that, when applied to a body having a mass of one kilogram, gives the body an acceleration of one metre per second per second"
• watt (W) - "the power that produces energy at the rate of one joule per second"
• hertz (Hz) - "the frequency of a periodic phenomenon of which the periodic time is one second"
• coulomb (C) - "the quantity of electricity transported in one second by a current of one ampere"
• henry (H) - "the inductance of a closed circuit in which an electromotive force of one volt is produced when the electric current in the circuit varies uniformly at a rate of one ampere per second"
• weber (Wb) - "the magnetic flux that, when linking a circuit of one turn, produces in that circuit an electromotive force of one volt as the flux is reduced to zero at a uniform rate in one second"
• becquerel (Bq) - "the activity of radionuclides that is equal to one per second"

The metric clock is a good idea, but would require a lot of other changes.

What a week this has been! Thanks for the correction regarding the "deca" and "hecto" units. Of course, you are right, I was asleep at the wheel. And thanks for the very informative e-mail identifying all the other units that relate to time. I wonder, though, if the great deal of changes necessary to implement Metric time would be any more daunting than the change to Metric we already went through.

So much for original ideas. I did a quick search for "metric time" this week and found that there are literally dozens of sites related to the subject. I can't believe how naive I was to think that Metric time might be a new idea. A few links I found are:

Bill Collins' Metric Time
A Guide To Metric Time - an exceptionally informative site.
World Time

This leafcutter bee thing just won't quit. I guess when I accused last week's author of the Letter of the Week of giving me a blank stare, I hit a nerve. Here's what he had to say:

I'm not sure that you understand the concept of alfalfa certified seed production my good man. The farmer plants alfalfa with the intent to gather two things:

1. seed which can be worth around $200 per pound (depending on grade and market demand), and
2. the leaf cutter bee eggs themselves. He does not have to replant that same field the next year as alfalfa is an annual crop.

OK OK! I get it now. I think I'm starting to hate leafcutter bees. If anybody has any further questions regarding this subject, don't hesitate to e-mail Mrs Pharmer.

Shortly after receiving the above e-mail, I got another one from the same "regular" contributor:

My last communication about leaf cutter bees stated that alfalfa was an annual crop. I meant to say perennial (it comes up every year without reseeding). Sorry for the error - I only hope that it didn't cause any farmers to go out and buy extra seed.

So far the Metric Time quizlet results show that you think I'm crazy. I'm very disappointed to find this. I'm going to leave the survey up for another week, so hopefully some of the more enlightened visitors will have a chance to vote. Check out the other sites I found and you'll see that some folks take the subject pretty seriously.

Join me next week when I'll have an interview with Bob Vila.

As always, send me your suggestions for future columns on crang.com. See you next week.

© October 14, 2000