On Sat, 10 Mar 2018 15:01:32 +1100, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 09, 2018 at 08:03:33PM -0500, Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

>> Noted, although 'discussion' of fiat calendars would only amount to a
>> couple of sentences, perhaps at most a short paragraph.

>A calendar used beyond the surface of a single planet is nearly always
>going to be a fiat calendar everywhere but at most one place.  Whole
>books could be written on the variations and cultural ramifications of
>adapting a "foreign" calendar to local conditions.  With enough
>engineering, perhaps local conditions coudl be adapted to match the
>calendar.

As far as "whole books can be written...", well, yes. The various jottings
I post under the 'Worldbuilding/Culturebuilding' subject lines are meant
only to outline the basic ideas, and provide a starting point for research
of your own - if you're interested.

As far as engineering to adapt the world to the calendar... I don't think
TL16 is enough to do it. TL20, maybe it's within the realm of possibility.

>There are also other species to consider: most Earth animals display
>marked diurnal variations in their functioning, and have limited
>ability to adapt to other periods.  Many also display strong
>species-wide annual variations, although there is little evidence of
>this in humans.

>It seems likely that species with strong biological cycles on various
>timescales will maintain some sort of separate calendar featuring
>those, regardless of whether some other calendar is "official".

Any world that's not purely industrial at TL7+, and is also a member of an
interstellar polity, will probably have dual calendars - a fiat calendar
from the interstellar polity for dealing therewith, and a local solar
calendar for dealing with local agriculture.

>For example, it seems to me quite likely that any human culture will
>maintain some timekeeping measurement approximating an Earth "day",
>with a length around 24-26 hours, even if immersed in a culture with
>other calendrical standards.

I believe that it's been found that in the absence of outside cues, the
human circadian reverts to roughly 27 hours - but with appropriate cues, it
can adapt to a bit of a wider rage - I don't recall exactly, but I think
that 18-36 hours is not difficult, though at the low end (and below) there
will probably be a tendency to 'double up' - that is, one day of cues is
only a half-circadian-cycle. And at the high end and above, you tend to
'double down' (one day of cues is actually two circadian-cycles).

>> That's not really a calendar, so much as an extended clock/timer - you
>> don't say "My birthday is every 31.5 megaseconds at kilosecond 36."
>
>I've seen it used for calendrical purposes in some fiction, though it
>strains my disbelief in the sense that 100 ks is just enough longer
>than a biological "day" to be implausible as a calendrical unit.

No, 100ks would actually be a good unit, because (a) 27 hours circadian
fitting into a period of 27 7/9 hours on the clock, and (b) nicely 'metric'
(divisible by powers of 10).

>If such a timekeeping system has been in use for a long time and
>"birthdays" are celebrated, they're not likely to be at odd multiples
>like that.  They would much more likely be at numbers like 100 Ms, and
>possibly be a bigger deal than those celebrated only every 31 Ms.

I think a case could be made for 10Ms, but that 31.5Ms is more or less a
current year, and even in the future, it seems to be fairly common to base
things like legal majority on age. Sure, you could fiat it to fit any
desired time/calendar unit (with a 10Ms 'big unit', legal age becomes
roughly 50-75 (about 17 years at the low end, 25 at the high end)), but
TRADISHUN is fairly important, and numbers like 18 or 21 end up having
metaphysical significance.

>> Even H.Beam Piper's use of hours instead of seconds in _Four Day
>> Planet_ was really clock/timer rather than calendar.
>
>I've read a book that did have a spacefaring culture using regular
>power-of-ten units for the calendar, but can't recall the book's name.
>The base unit was "chron", a bit more than a minute.  It didn't match
>any particular planet of course, but then any other system would fail
>to match all but one planet anyway.  I vaguely recall that the planets
>encountered during the story were rather primitive (TL6- in Traveller
>terms), and at least one had a "barbaric" calendar of their own.

Swatch (the watch company) actually tried to 'invent' this in the real
world; see if you can find any references for 'Swatch Internet Time'. The
day is 1000 "beats" long, and there's only one time zone, Geneva. At 20:28
EDT Monday 2018-03-12, it's @061 (Swatch beats) Tuesday 2018-03-13.

(Beware the Ides of March.  Or is that the Ideas?)

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