Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The world agrees on one thing!

The world agrees that there are 24 hours in a day. If there is a modern culture that divides the day into more or less periods, I'm not aware of it.

While researching this entry I found out why there are duodecimal systems - based on 12. In addition to the 12 lunar cycles in a year, we have 12 digits on the long fingers of each hand. We can use our thumb to count on them. See Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?.

Many cultures do most official timekeeping on 24 hours. That is shop hours may be 0900 to 2000 (9 in the morning to 8 in the evening) and train and plane schedules are on this 24-hour period. As expected, the U.S. is one of the few holdouts, dividing the day into two 12-hour periods; the 1710 flight leaves a U.S. airport at 5:10 p.m.

What do you expect from a society that resists the metric system and forming true coalitions to tackle world problems?

We need some leaders that can agree on a few more things, like the futility of nuclear weapons.