Milliday (ConceptTopic, 3)

From Compile Worlds

Millidays is a metric time system thought up by Keiji (and probably loads of other people throughout history).

The idea is simple, instead of using the archaic "seconds", "minutes" and "hours", we take a day and divide it into one thousand. One milliday (md) is 86.4 seconds, or just over a minute. There is then the microday (µd) which is 86.4 milliseconds, the nanoday (nd) which is 86.4 microseconds, and the picoday (pd) which is 86.4 nanoseconds. One minute is about 0.7 of a milliday, and one hour is about 42 millidays.

Millidays work especially well when used in conjunction with the metric calendar, with ten days per week, nine weeks per quarter, and four quarters per year with a five- or six-day annual holiday to fill the gap at the end of the year.

In specific fields

In music

Tempo can be measured in beats per day. Keiji's classic 135 bpm becomes 194.4 kbpd (kilo-beats per day), equivalently 194.4 bpmd (beats per milliday), and 180 bpm becomes 259.2 bpmd.

In computers

Clock speeds can be measured in ticks per day, or "day-based Hertz", dHz. A 3.2 GHz processor on an 800 MHz FSB becomes (approximately) an 280 TdHz processor on a 70 TdHz FSB. Data transfer speeds can be measured in bits per day, so a 15 Mb/s downstream becomes a 1.3 Tb/d downstream, and a 3 Gb/s SATA connection becomes 260 Tb/d.

On the road

Vehicle speeds can be measured in meters per microday, or equivalently kilometers per milliday. A 70 mile an hour speed limit becomes a 2.7 m/µd (or km/md) speed limit, and 90 km/h becomes 2.2 m/µd.

In physics

The speed of light is 25.9 Tm/d (terameters per day), also 25.9 km/nd (kilometers per nanoday). The speed of sound in air is 29.4 Mm/d (megameters per day), also 29.4 km/md. The speed of electrons in silicon is about 8.6 Gm/d (gigameters per day), also 8.6 mm/pd.