Perhaps there's a difference between the stations Bajoran time and the Defiant's UFP time?
Why is 1 day 26hrs???
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Strictly speaking you're both right, the Solar Day is 24hours, the Sideral Day is around 23hrs 56mins. As for Leap Years it's because it takes the Earth ~365.25 days to make one complete orbit around Sol.
One of the more interesting things about measuring time in the Trek universe is they apparently don't rely on typical internal clocks, but likely lock onto external astronomical sources, like known pulsars and the computers can calculate the time, or external Federation sources, like subspace time beacons where they can read the official time. We know this because sometimes when a ship travels back in time, their internal clocks are running backwards. They wouldn't do that since the people are still moving forward and so would their internal clocks, unless those clocks weren't measuring time on the ship, but were telling time by calculating it from external astronomical observations (done automatically) or locking onto an exterior beacon and reading it, so even when they are moving forward on the ship, as the ship goes back in time, their clocks are reading a signal that seems to be regressing in time.
While they doubtlessly avoid relativistic effects at warp speeds, and maybe even impulse speeds with inertial dampeners, I'd wager time still runs differently for moving objects in normal space, and over time, this could have a noticeable effect on one's true age. Alas, regardless of how many seconds have elapsed for you since your birth, as far as most people are concerned, and as far as you can probably know, your age is whatever the external, stationary time sources say has elapsed since your birthday.
While they doubtlessly avoid relativistic effects at warp speeds, and maybe even impulse speeds with inertial dampeners, I'd wager time still runs differently for moving objects in normal space, and over time, this could have a noticeable effect on one's true age. Alas, regardless of how many seconds have elapsed for you since your birth, as far as most people are concerned, and as far as you can probably know, your age is whatever the external, stationary time sources say has elapsed since your birthday.
Many might not realize this, but the length of Earth's day is constantly changing. In our lifetimes, not by much (a few milliseconds longer) but due to the moon's tidal effects, the day is getting longer. Deep in the past when the moon was formed, the Earth's day may have been only a few hours, and in the far future, it might be hundreds of hours long or more (though other things, like an expanding sun, might happen billions of years from now and long before the Earth/Moon system alone can get that far).
Just FYI, it was the other way around. They mention meeting at 9 o'clock first and then say, "That's 2100 to you".
Oh, absolutely, different ships and space stations could all use their own internal clocks or alternate systems (like an 18-hour clock) if they wanted, but Federation ships and space stations likely use external standard sources to make life easier and rendezvous less prone to mistakes if they all use the same coordinate universal time standard. Of course, their computers also probably keep track of numerous different means of measuring time in different areas, like on DS9, the Defiant, Earth, or on Bajor, and which one you use is up to you - like looking at multiple clocks, each showing a different time zone. I'd wager the two most prominent ones on display wit
Yeah, something like that - but the point is it showed them using a 24-hour military clock in that episode. It could have been a 24-Bajoran hour clock, or a 24-Earth hour clock, but it was a 24-hour clock (since the offset was 12 hours and not 13 hours). My guess is the former, since I'd think if your in the system for an extended period, it's easier to adopt local time (like changing your watch when you fly to a new time zone rather than calculating it each time you need to know what time it is). But I also read Odo once mentioned something happening at 25:00 hours (I don't recall, but such things are easily missed), so if Odo did say 25:00 hours, they clearly are also using a 26-hour clock at times, as well as a 24-hour clock. But like a lot of Trek, they aren't always perfectly consistent. This is easily explained just knowing they often use multiple systems of measuring time, and we expect which one is being used is likely known ahead of time for the people involved, or it's easy to discern from context (even if it's not obvious for the audience).
Pardon my ignorance, but what makes it a 24 hour clock? Why can't you just run it up to 2600? What does "the offset was 12 not 13" actually mean here?
It was a 24-hour clock since 21:00 hours translated to 9:00 p.m. and not 8:00 p.m. The offset was 12 hours (half a day) i.e. 21-12=9. If the offset was 13 hours, then 21-13=8 and they would have been using a 26-hour clock and the offset would be 13 hours (half a day) and not 12.
I'm told Odo once mentioned something happening at 25:00 hours, so in that episode (if the report is true and he did say that) he was using a 26-hour clock. Thus, they obviously use both, and which one they are using at any given moment is likely discerned from context or agreed ahead of time by the parties involved (even if they don't bother making it clear to the audience - since it's not that important to the story).
I'm told Odo once mentioned something happening at 25:00 hours, so in that episode (if the report is true and he did say that) he was using a 26-hour clock. Thus, they obviously use both, and which one they are using at any given moment is likely discerned from context or agreed ahead of time by the parties involved (even if they don't bother making it clear to the audience - since it's not that important to the story).
Time is arbitrary. Whatever world you're on, whatever culture you're dealing with, they will all mark time in different ways. But I would guess that time on a planet will invariably be defined by orbit around a star, and period of rotation, and orbital period of any natural satellites. Those 'constants' will be different for each world. They don't necessarily even have to agree on a single planet. Look at Earth and all its calendars. We have a significant portion of the planet that sets its time based on the phases of the moon, and the lunar calendar months are not the same as the months on the Gregorian Calendar.
As for the 24 hour clock, there is a mathematical elegance to it that makes it very useful. 24 hours in a day, 12 hours in half a day, 6 hours in a quarter, 3 hours in an eighth of a day. A traditional clock face is circular so time can be elegantly divided by degrees on a circle. In geometry, there's a reason why fractions of a degree are measured in minutes and seconds. The way we measure time is so easy to calculate with, with roots in base 12 mathematics.
Now if Bajorans are calculating in base 13, which the 26 hour clock implies, that makes it a lot more convoluted to work with. A day is 26 hours, half a day is 13 hours, and subdividing further you're already working with fractions. When it comes to counting time, even base 10 is cumbersome. It all comes down to circles, which is what you get with the most basic measure of time, the sundial, the orbit, the rotation. An hour on Earth needn't be an hour on Vulcan, or an hour on Bajor, but the constancy of mathematics would tend to suggest a day length of multiples of 12 on any world. Unless the means of measuring and displaying time was so fundamentally different, that it would have nothing to do with circles.
As for the 24 hour clock, there is a mathematical elegance to it that makes it very useful. 24 hours in a day, 12 hours in half a day, 6 hours in a quarter, 3 hours in an eighth of a day. A traditional clock face is circular so time can be elegantly divided by degrees on a circle. In geometry, there's a reason why fractions of a degree are measured in minutes and seconds. The way we measure time is so easy to calculate with, with roots in base 12 mathematics.
Now if Bajorans are calculating in base 13, which the 26 hour clock implies, that makes it a lot more convoluted to work with. A day is 26 hours, half a day is 13 hours, and subdividing further you're already working with fractions. When it comes to counting time, even base 10 is cumbersome. It all comes down to circles, which is what you get with the most basic measure of time, the sundial, the orbit, the rotation. An hour on Earth needn't be an hour on Vulcan, or an hour on Bajor, but the constancy of mathematics would tend to suggest a day length of multiples of 12 on any world. Unless the means of measuring and displaying time was so fundamentally different, that it would have nothing to do with circles.
Maybe when converting to traditional time format, they put two extra hours at the end of the day (leap hours), like this:
000 12:00 AM
100 1:00 AM
200 2:00 AM
300 3:00 AM
400 4:00 AM
500 5:00 AM
600 6:00 AM
700 7:00 AM
800 8:00 AM
900 9:00 AM
1000 10:00 AM
1100 11:00 AM
1200 12:00 PM
1300 1:00 PM
1400 2:00 PM
1500 3:00 PM
1600 4:00 PM
1700 5:00 PM
1800 6:00 PM
1900 7:00 PM
2000 8:00 PM
2100 9:00 PM
2200 10:00 PM
2300 11:00 PM
2400 12:00 LH
2500 13:00 LH
The most fundamental unit of time would be the day, the rational period about a planet's axis. The orbit about the sun and the orbital period of any large natural satellite might also come into play.
I guess it's true when I pointed out that 24 is a natural choice and hardly arbitrary, I did assume similarities between humans and any given alien race. For example, we have 10 fingers, making decimal time an option, but with 4 fingers, and 3 knuckles on each finger, by using an independent opposable thumb to count those 12 knuckles, on one hand you can just as easily count to 12. Either base 10 or base 12 works, but 12 has 6 factors while 10 has 4. I think the reason why 24 has prevailed is mostly due to objective fact. Similarly, a dozen this or that, 60 minutes, 60 seconds, 360 degrees in a circle, etc. all share the feature of having more numerous and handy factors with which one may evenly divide up the day. It may also be the case since the moon orbits the Earth 12 times a year, this bolsters 12 as a good choice for the number of hours in the day and the night, but it's not necessary to ensure 24 hours a day.
However, should an alien race not have 10 fingers, or 12 finger knuckles on each hand, they could quite easily use any number of different systems. Bajorans, Vulcan, and most Federation species, of course, seem to have a similar physiology to human beings, so they would also likely divide up their day into 24 equal parts for similar reasons. Each of those planet's hours would probably not be identical to an Earth hour in length, but if the actual time span of a planet's day is close to 24 Earth hours, minor adjustments likely fall within our ability to cope with slightly longer or slighter shorter days. We'd also have to cope with slightly stronger or weaker surface gravities, or different percentages of oxygen in the air, and other things. Compared to dealing with alien languages, time would be relatively easy.
I guess it's true when I pointed out that 24 is a natural choice and hardly arbitrary, I did assume similarities between humans and any given alien race. For example, we have 10 fingers, making decimal time an option, but with 4 fingers, and 3 knuckles on each finger, by using an independent opposable thumb to count those 12 knuckles, on one hand you can just as easily count to 12. Either base 10 or base 12 works, but 12 has 6 factors while 10 has 4. I think the reason why 24 has prevailed is mostly due to objective fact. Similarly, a dozen this or that, 60 minutes, 60 seconds, 360 degrees in a circle, etc. all share the feature of having more numerous and handy factors with which one may evenly divide up the day. It may also be the case since the moon orbits the Earth 12 times a year, this bolsters 12 as a good choice for the number of hours in the day and the night, but it's not necessary to ensure 24 hours a day.
However, should an alien race not have 10 fingers, or 12 finger knuckles on each hand, they could quite easily use any number of different systems. Bajorans, Vulcan, and most Federation species, of course, seem to have a similar physiology to human beings, so they would also likely divide up their day into 24 equal parts for similar reasons. Each of those planet's hours would probably not be identical to an Earth hour in length, but if the actual time span of a planet's day is close to 24 Earth hours, minor adjustments likely fall within our ability to cope with slightly longer or slighter shorter days. We'd also have to cope with slightly stronger or weaker surface gravities, or different percentages of oxygen in the air, and other things. Compared to dealing with alien languages, time would be relatively easy.
The only truly natural way to divide the day is in half, darkness and light. Consider how many ancient cultures started with the day at sunrise or sunset.
But that's not DS9 timekeeping, or Bajoran timekeeping, or Starfleet timekeeping. That's Vic Fontaine timekeeping. And Vic Fontaine, no matter how self-aware, pretends to exist in Las Vegas.
Except not. Known physics would collapse if somebody messed with the definition of the second, a unit with zero roots in the movement of heavenly bodies. And seconds are important to life-and-death countdowns and fast conversions, too. Minutes, less so (because you can do a conversion in that time). Hours, not at all (because those are completely arbitrary units not related to anything much, and so long that shrinking or growing them by even a couple of dozen percent would change very little in our lives).
I could well see the Bajorans having units comparable to seconds and minutes, and perhaps even approximately the same in length. But any English dialogue where a Bajoran says "second" must be dialogue translated not just into English but into Earth seconds of SI standard (by the UT or by the educated speaker, take your pick).
But there are no such reasons in Earth history, either. Humans didn't have 24 time units per day originally - we had something that slowly mutated from 9 into 12 units of daylight, after which people resigned to the fact that they'd have to call the units of darkness something, too, and found that donating 12 hours to the purpose was the least painful way to proceed.
We chose the decimal system for our physiological quirks, over the mathematical convenience of systems based on 8 or 12. We did the opposite with hours. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and no basis for assuming that others, in alien worlds or parallel timelines, would follow our muddled lead.
Timo Saloniemi
Just as with evolution, what works better tends to stick around, and what works less well tends to die off. And here we are, working with our physiology, with a surviving 24 hour day, and a 12-hour clock we use twice a day (unless we use military time and offset the later half of the day by adding half a day's time to the second set of hours. And while I'm sure countless other systems might arise on other planets, particularly those with aliens of differing phsyiologies, I think aliens with similar physiologies would similarly find what works. But it is just a guess.
Now the "day" is a pretty basic unit, and one of the first defined by any culture. If would be discovered and used perhaps millennium before the concept of something like Planck Time. I'm not saying finer divisions of the day aren't important in the modern world and beyond, and split second timing might not be critical at some point, but the day would be defined and used first before those other finer units and detail.
The idea Vic and Vic alone was using a 24-Earth hour military clock seems wrong since it didn't phase Odo at all, and the time of day in the holosuite is any random time you wish to start a program, so I strongly suspect that exchange only made sense if Vic was using a system used elsewhere on DS9, and with which Odo was familiar, and that fit into the normal daily schedules of the station's inhabitants (i.e. night time, after work, or after their duty shift, or whatever).
Now the "day" is a pretty basic unit, and one of the first defined by any culture. If would be discovered and used perhaps millennium before the concept of something like Planck Time. I'm not saying finer divisions of the day aren't important in the modern world and beyond, and split second timing might not be critical at some point, but the day would be defined and used first before those other finer units and detail.
The idea Vic and Vic alone was using a 24-Earth hour military clock seems wrong since it didn't phase Odo at all, and the time of day in the holosuite is any random time you wish to start a program, so I strongly suspect that exchange only made sense if Vic was using a system used elsewhere on DS9, and with which Odo was familiar, and that fit into the normal daily schedules of the station's inhabitants (i.e. night time, after work, or after their duty shift, or whatever).
...But the thing with evolution is that Nature sticks to that which works, never striving for that which works better. And thus we're stuck at local minima of goodness - and those minima are chosen completely at random. Were somebody with an ounce of sense to tell Nature to hop to a better minimum, that's where evolution would stick (i.e. get stuck) next. But nobody tells the Trek humanoid species to hop to the same local minimum.
Except of course somebody does: creationism is true in the Trek universe, with the Creator even literally going for the "in My image" thing (TNG "The Chase"). If the Ancients can dictate that all humanoids be sexually compatible, surely they can also program everybody to obey a 24 hour clock?
(Except of course they don't, because 26 hour clock.)
No disagreement there. It's just that when a world first has to cope with alien standards of time, it may be a world of cave dwellers getting a heavenly visitation, or a world of star travelers visiting other worlds - and we know Earth is more the second type than the first. By that time of cultural evolution, abstract timekeeping would already have grown far more crucial to the smooth running of things than natural timekeeping.
But that's consistent because Odo isn't phased by the tuxedo or the ambience, either.
Probably so - thus further establishing that Vic lives in Las Vegas, not aboard DS9.
He'd only need to do that for the "in your reality, it means X" bit, though. Which is what his phrasing may well be taken to mean.
I mean, Odo may be a frequent user of the military time format (lamentably using it in a way that never allows us to decide whether it's Earth military time or Bajoran - no 2500 hours there!), but everybody on the station is overheard using the am/pm format as well, including Odo and Quark. Vic may be making fun at the expense of Odo's bureaucratic approach to timekeeping, but he isn't out to clarify an unclear situation: if he knows Odo likes to use military time, he also knows Odo is well aware of the am/pm system.
Timo Saloniemi
Welcome to Trek BBS @JRTStarlight. 
You may not have noticed, but the last reply to this thread before your own was almost 9 years ago.
As a rule, we ask posters not to revive threads which have had no activity in over a year. You are more than welcome to start a new thread on the subject if you want to though. If need be you can always post a link to the old thread if there is a specific point you'd like to address.
Normally I would lock a zombie thread like this but since it seems to be generating a fair bit of new discussion I'll leave it open. Please just don't make a habit of it!
Thanks!
You may not have noticed, but the last reply to this thread before your own was almost 9 years ago.
As a rule, we ask posters not to revive threads which have had no activity in over a year. You are more than welcome to start a new thread on the subject if you want to though. If need be you can always post a link to the old thread if there is a specific point you'd like to address.Normally I would lock a zombie thread like this but since it seems to be generating a fair bit of new discussion I'll leave it open. Please just don't make a habit of it!
Thanks!
Absolutely not!
The reason the 24-hour day is ubiquitous is because of (1) Christianity and (2) European businessmen. Let's put is aside the fact that in most cultures, the 12-hour division of daylight did not mean that there was a set unit of time being measured; the daylight was variable, so any subdivision thereof was variable. Other advanced cultures had days that were divided into different numbers. The Aztecs had 16 unit days, and the Maya had 26! Those systems were overthrown due to the cultural imperialism practiced by the Roman Catholic Church. France had a brief period in which they instituted decimal time, which included 20-hour days. We know a lot about why it didn't take. First, the workers didn't care: they went to work with the sunrise, and came home with the sunset. They had no means of determining what time it was under a decimal system. On the hand, the churches continued to perform ceremonies according to the 24 hour day, ringing the bells throughout the daily cycle. Hearing the bell ring was a more practical means for workers to tell time. The need to maintain the decimal day was reversed in several years. However, there were cities--those which were more radical--which continued to use decimal time, and a law had to be passed to force them to adhere to the 24 hour day. Second, the appearance of the 24-hour day was very much tied to the presence of Europeans, particularly with the introduction of things like mining and tropical industries.
There is nothing natural about the 24 hour day. It may be elegant mathematically, but you must not confuse that with some sort of anthropological truth.
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You shouldn't read too much into a simple analogy, and while it is true evolution isn't striving toward anything in particular, I wouldn't call the process "random" inasmuch as natural forces are not simply random. If one were cast out of an apparent minima of goodness (a false minima), I see no reason why Nature would remain stuck at the false minima but would naturally settle for the newly found true minima.
I don't believe Creationism is applicable inasmuch as that term suggests a larger creation (universal creation) than the relatively small number of species whose genetics were toyed with by one ancient civilization in one galaxy, and never suggests where that species came from, as if they, themselves, were also created. Anyway, interplanetary species cross breading, despite its apparent ease in Trek, is likely the result of modern clever geneticists and their helping hand (gene manipulation) rather than a natural ability to crossbreed. It might seem every humanoid is sexually and reproductively compatible (due to the need to write a story more of fantasy than science fiction) but I'd tend to think a lot more is going on in the background to which we are not privy to make such paring compatible and better based in science. We need not always know the details to enjoy those stories, of course, but if you think a green-blooded, copper blood based humanoid can effortlessly mate and reproduce with a red blooded, iron based human without further genetic help, I don't think you're overly concerned about science but are perfectly fine with fantasy. But what mystifies me most there is how that relates at all to obeying a 24-hour clock rule, or why an ancient race would even concern itself with such a thing, whose home world's rotation was almost certainly different than 24 Earth hours.
Abstract time keeping? You mean adopting some universal standard everybody could get behind, like galactic pulsars and a means to determine a galactic wide time from them? If so, I see no reason why a planetary culture would totally abandon its historic and cultural roots, but would likely use both, or multiple means. And it will hardly ever be able to abandon its day (whatever length it may be) while still living on their home planet.
With Odo's penchant for reading old mystery novels (and Earth ones, no less – those Bajoran novels apparently suck too much to mention) he may have picked up the 24-Earth hour military clock, sure. But Vic setting arbitrary times when he can expect Odo and others to attend a holo gathering, independent of their work schedules, seems silly. Vic is too aware of "our" world to ignore the obvious advantages of synching with DS9 time and the schedules of those who visit his program when making dates or setting meeting times. Of course, I'm sure the program will display any time of day you want, so if you want an adventure at night, it wouldn’t matter if it were 10:30 a.m. outside the holosuite.
I thought somebody said Odo did mention a 25:00 hours time once – I don't recall, but all that would show is more than one time keeping system may be in use, and we know more than one is. So you're saying Vic explained himself to Odo despite knowing Odo already knew what he meant, to make fun of him? Doesn't sound like Vic, but there's no accounting for the whims of some holograms, I guess.
I don't believe Creationism is applicable inasmuch as that term suggests a larger creation (universal creation) than the relatively small number of species whose genetics were toyed with by one ancient civilization in one galaxy, and never suggests where that species came from, as if they, themselves, were also created. Anyway, interplanetary species cross breading, despite its apparent ease in Trek, is likely the result of modern clever geneticists and their helping hand (gene manipulation) rather than a natural ability to crossbreed. It might seem every humanoid is sexually and reproductively compatible (due to the need to write a story more of fantasy than science fiction) but I'd tend to think a lot more is going on in the background to which we are not privy to make such paring compatible and better based in science. We need not always know the details to enjoy those stories, of course, but if you think a green-blooded, copper blood based humanoid can effortlessly mate and reproduce with a red blooded, iron based human without further genetic help, I don't think you're overly concerned about science but are perfectly fine with fantasy. But what mystifies me most there is how that relates at all to obeying a 24-hour clock rule, or why an ancient race would even concern itself with such a thing, whose home world's rotation was almost certainly different than 24 Earth hours.
Abstract time keeping? You mean adopting some universal standard everybody could get behind, like galactic pulsars and a means to determine a galactic wide time from them? If so, I see no reason why a planetary culture would totally abandon its historic and cultural roots, but would likely use both, or multiple means. And it will hardly ever be able to abandon its day (whatever length it may be) while still living on their home planet.
With Odo's penchant for reading old mystery novels (and Earth ones, no less – those Bajoran novels apparently suck too much to mention) he may have picked up the 24-Earth hour military clock, sure. But Vic setting arbitrary times when he can expect Odo and others to attend a holo gathering, independent of their work schedules, seems silly. Vic is too aware of "our" world to ignore the obvious advantages of synching with DS9 time and the schedules of those who visit his program when making dates or setting meeting times. Of course, I'm sure the program will display any time of day you want, so if you want an adventure at night, it wouldn’t matter if it were 10:30 a.m. outside the holosuite.
I thought somebody said Odo did mention a 25:00 hours time once – I don't recall, but all that would show is more than one time keeping system may be in use, and we know more than one is. So you're saying Vic explained himself to Odo despite knowing Odo already knew what he meant, to make fun of him? Doesn't sound like Vic, but there's no accounting for the whims of some holograms, I guess.
I did not really notice the date of the last post, nor was I aware this was a rule. Sorry. Though it seems an odd rule. If no one replies to a new post, where's the harm? And if people do post, isn't there genuine interest continuing a discussion?
If any event, since you feel it's important, in future I will try to avoid posting in ancient threads, and if I really feel compelled to talk about an old topic, I will start a new thread (if I can figure out how, since I've yet to do that here).
If this is a rule, why don't you lock zombie threads, as you call them? Too much work to track them all down? No matter.
If any event, since you feel it's important, in future I will try to avoid posting in ancient threads, and if I really feel compelled to talk about an old topic, I will start a new thread (if I can figure out how, since I've yet to do that here).
If this is a rule, why don't you lock zombie threads, as you call them? Too much work to track them all down? No matter.
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