26 Hour Days...

[Triskelion]

I believe I read somewhere that if you locked someone in a room with no windows, that each day they would go to bed a little later. My own experience bears this out. I suppose eventually you could lap yourself. But a longer day? I think that would be a problem for the human physiology. For example, if you stayed awake a week straight, you would still only need 8 hours of sleep. That is some weird stuff right there! Maybe it has something to do with brain buffering lag; after 24 hours you get the spinning beach ball of death.

Maybe you could figure it out in prison after they arrest you for locking someone in a room with no windows to conduct scientific experiments on them.

 

[Timo]

Fairly little is known about sleep - it's only within the past five years or so that any evidence has been found for the idea that sleep allows a "brainwashing" mechanism to remove waste products from the brain, say. But we know from world history that people on the average survive for a bit less than a century even on utterly perverse rhythms of sleep and work; the negative effect of bad rhythms is not all that significant in practice.

If Bajor had a day/night cycle too long to allow Sisko's brain to get cleaned, he'd just have to take naps. But two extra hours per day for a full lifetime might just make him a tad irritated. Or cause loss of hair or something.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkt]

If Bajor had a day/night cycle too long to allow Sisko's brain to get cleaned, he'd just have to take naps. But two extra hours per day for a full lifetime might just make him a tad irritated. Or cause loss of hair or something.

Even hallucinations and delusions of godhood?

 

[Tosk]

I believe I read somewhere that if you locked someone in a room with no windows, that each day they would go to bed a little later. My own experience bears this out.

Even without windows. This happens to me whenever I'm on vacation. I usually cycle back in time to go back to work.

 

[Timo]

...How do you manage to pedal faster than 88 mph?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

DS9 did something many of us only dream of... have more hours in the day.

And it's fun to think they had a 13 O'Clock...

But I do wonder about the logistics of this. You can't divide it equally by 3 or 4, so that might make duty shifts seem longer or shorter than other Starfleet postings.

Bajora takes 26 hours to go around its main star. Why should they follow Earth time keeping, they are not in the Sol system.

 

[Triskelion]

Nobody here has suggested that, have they?

 

[Timo]

Bajora takes 26 hours to go around its main star.

I seriously hope not! (Unless Bajora is an iron asteroid of some sort. In addition to being a terrorist group, and perhaps a punk band.)

Why should they follow Earth time keeping, they are not in the Sol system.

Because our Earth-allegiance heroes must agree upon the time intervals. They speak English (at least after the UT is done with it); they thus naturally also use Earth units (at least after the UT is done with it).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

oops I meant rotate lol

 

[Timo]

Yeah. One might say the star takes 26 hours to go around the planet... Give or take (sidereal vs. solar).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

When on Bajor, do as the Bajorans do.

If it were a 38 hour day it'd be difficult for humans. 26? Fine. Just add an extra 40 minutes to sleep.

 

[Tenacity]

Why should they follow Earth time keeping, they are not in the Sol system

For the Humans, they are the end product of thousands of generations of a 24 hour day.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I'm guessing it's Earth-standard hours translated for our benefit. Everything else seems to be, but Bajoran units seem to remain intact (tessipates of land, etc.) when directly referenced; and on my current DS9 re-watch I don't know any specific references to anyone ON BAJOR specifically mentioning their 26-hour-long day. Thus, I'd be happy thinking that Bajoran day is 26 Earth hours long, they run DS9 by the Bajoran day, but if you'd ask to schedule a meeting ON BAJOR, the secretary would tell you to meet at rum'ple o'clock or something. Interestingly, the Starfleet gang seems to have internalized the clock even when away from the station for extended periods of time - during the sixth season opening episode, Dax does mention that they've been up for 78 hours at one point, meaning three Bajoran days.

Of course, the 26 hour day is a cheap and easy way for the producers of the show to say "We're on an ALIEN WORLD!!!" without investing in a special or practical effect. I really doubt it could ever be a plot point. For whatever reason, the Federation never shifted the measurement of conventional time to something more reasonably measured for people (and it's not like stardates were ever a reasonable method of keeping time, no matter how you look at it) but that's another way of keeping the show itself relevant to our audience.

And no, I don't believe that they ARE talking to some future time measurement system and our TVs are just translating it for us. :P

Mark