Saturday, July 24, 2004

Metric units of time

micromonth=2.6297438second
millihour=3.6second
microyear=31.556926second
milliday=86.4second
milliweek=604.8second
milliday=1.44minute
milliweek=10.08minute
kilosecond=16.666667minute
millimonth=43.829064minute
milliyear=525.94877minute
milliyear=8.7658128hour
kilominute=16.666667hour
megasecond=277.77778hour
megasecond=11.574074day
kilohour=41.666667day
megaminute=694.44444day
megasecond=1.6534392week
kilohour=5.952381week
megaminute=99.206349week
kiloday=142.85714week
kilohour=1.3689546month
megaminute=22.815911month
kiloday=32.854911month
kiloweek=229.98438month
gigasecond=380.26518month
megaminute=1.9013259year
kiloday=2.7379093year
kiloweek=19.165365year
gigasecond=31.688765year
kilomonth=83.333333year
megahour=114.07955year
The weird thing about this table is its order and format. I thought about many different ways of presenting the equivalent information. For example, I could put un-prefixed units along the left column, or I could sort the rows by length of time. Both of these might be more logical. However, the ordering and layout above somehow struck me as paradoxically the most elegant. See also Slow cycle times.

3 comments :

pachanka said...

Hey ken, for some reason this post struck me as interesting, so I made a little calculator for it. (and borrowed your table, hope you don't mind.)

Anyway, its here. http://pachanka.org/?redir+metrictime

Anonymous said...

Why are there not micro on every thing and giga on everything




Unknown said...

Wow, first time seeing this