Is there another way Trek measures time?

[MarsWeeps]

I was watching The Savage Curtain, which was a few episodes before the end of the series and the following exchange took place between "Lincoln" and Kirk.

KIRK: We'd be honoured to have you aboard, Mister President.
LINCOLN [on viewscreen]: Do you still measure time in minutes?
KIRK: We can convert to it, sir.

So, when didn't Trek measure time in minutes? Seconds, Hours, Days, Weeks, were all mentioned in TOS so why would Kirk make such a statement?

Was there ever an episode that indicated that they measured time differently in the Trek universe?

 

[Christopher]

It was the third season. There wasn't a lot of regard for continuity.

In theory, stardates should be a separate time system that's independent of Earth-based units. An interstellar, multispecies Federation really shouldn't measure time in Earth days or months or years, since different planets would have different lengths for those things; and the other member species probably have their own units for shorter lengths of time corresponding to hours or minutes or seconds. But ST never bothered to develop that idea beyond using stardates in log entries, so we get the inconsistency that a more universal calendar exists but everybody still uses Earth units -- an inconsistency compounded in the movies and sequel series when characters were constantly giving calendar dates in Gregorian years. (And worst of all in the new movies, wherein the "stardates" are just the Gregorian year and day formatted a little unusually, in which case what is "star" about them?) So if anything, "The Savage Curtain" represents how it should've been done but usually wasn't.

 

[Nebusj]

Perhaps Kirk was being cagey, on the assumption that if he threw up silly barriers then the mysterious entity contacting them might let slip something useful. It didn't work, granted, and I'm not sure what Kirk might have hoped to get, but obviously he did recognize right away this was yet another Nigh-Omnipotent Alien Messing With Our Heads and maybe wanted to see what trying to sound a little off from human might do.

 

[Melakon]

Since the Excalbians are obviously some type of telepath, they must have derived "minutes" from Kirk's own thoughts.

 

[Timo]

Kirk does do a lot of converting - he is using both meters and miles, kilograms and pounds rather fluently. Sometimes a single exchange with Spock can jump back and forth between the two systems... So perhaps every time our heroes use minutes, they are indeed doing converting, and would be just as comfortable with setting up a date on Stardate 2452.352 sharp or saying their youngest just turned 5,000.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MarsWeeps]

Kirk does do a lot of converting - he is using both meters and miles, kilograms and pounds rather fluently. Sometimes a single exchange with Spock can jump back and forth between the two systems... So perhaps every time our heroes use minutes, they are indeed doing converting, and would be just as comfortable with setting up a date on Stardate 2452.352 sharp or saying their youngest just turned 5,000.

But in the whole series, except for Stardates, we never hear of another unit of time that would replace seconds, minutes, hours, etc. Why would Kirk constantly convert to "our" version of time instead of what they would normally use?

Heck, even the alien villain of the week used "our" time.

"I give you 2 of your hours for you to decide..blah, blah, blah"

 

[cgervasi]

Stardates

Was there ever an episode that indicated that they measured time differently in the Trek universe?

In Star Trek III, Kirk enters units of time to rewind in some sort of .[2-digit-number] stardate notation. Someone on Grissom gives the arrival time in the same notation.

I was under the impression that people from Earth uses our calendar and clock, the way I used "mils" (thousandths of an inch). I know outside the US mils is slang for mm, and there are just under 40 thousandths in 1 mm. This is very confusing to someone not familiar wiht US units.

So in Star Trek, when talking to an international audience and someone asks the date, they may say 8310, when the exact stardate and time is 8310.50.00. We are never told the conversion but one star date may be a little less than a day. 0.1 may be around an hour or two. 0.00.10 maybe around a minute. If someone asks what time to meet, you might say "at point "5, meaning [current star date].50.00. If you say it takes the turbolift "point 1" to reach its destination, this is understood to mean 0.00.10.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I was watching The Savage Curtain, which was a few episodes before the end of the series and the following exchange took place between "Lincoln" and Kirk.

KIRK: We'd be honoured to have you aboard, Mister President.
LINCOLN [on viewscreen]: Do you still measure time in minutes?
KIRK: We can convert to it, sir.

So, when didn't Trek measure time in minutes? Seconds, Hours, Days, Weeks, were all mentioned in TOS so why would Kirk make such a statement?

Was there ever an episode that indicated that they measured time differently in the Trek universe?

I just always assumed from Kirk's expression that he thought he was being funny. We know from the clocks on Enterprise that they do measure time in minutes... they are clearly labelled as such.

 

[Timo]

...I really like what they do with this in the remastering process:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x04hd/thenakedtimehd1188.jpg

It almost looks as if stardates are absolute time, something contrary to the Einsteinian view of the universe but perhaps inherent in the Trek reality of subspace and whatnot - while time aboard the ship may progress in various ways against the steady flow of stardates, and can be measured in various units but tends to be measured in "classical" ones. Kirk enters absolute time in his logs for others to read about, but speaks in terms of shipboard time and in down-to-Earth units because that's what he and his crew actually experience.

(Of course, in that case, the "shipboard" part of that display ought to roll forward at the usual steady speed of one second per second, while the stardates spin backward - which is not what is shown in this scene from the remastered "The Naked Time".)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[telerites]

That always bugged me too in that episode. It is actually one of my favorites, especially from the 3rd season but they had used hours and minutes in previous episodes.