Metric Time applied to football

[The Gipper]

OK, folks, here is something a little off the wall. You are all familiar that in most of the rest of the world the metric system is used. (That's why a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is a "Royale" with cheese in other parts of the world, right?).

The metric system is used in weight , volume, distances, etc. etc. Two things you may not know however:

 

First: The metric system came into being as a result of the French Revolution when, not only did the Revolutionaries want to get rid of their monarchist government, but they also wanted to revolutionize the way the whole country did business, so they 'invented' the metric system, most of which eventually became adopted just about everywhere but here.

 

Second: The French Revolution also adopted a Metric System for time! Yes, they proposed that there be no more 24 hour days, 60 minute hours, 60 second minutes. Even the Calendar was to be changed. And for a few years it was until Napolean came along and changed the time system back to the way we have it now. Before I get to the football part, let me explain a few things about Metric Time:

 

Calendar. The Year and the Day could not be changed because those are matters controlled by nature. A Year is the time it takes the Earth to make an orbit around the sun, and a Day is the time it takes to Earth to rotate on its axis. But, all other time aspects are completely man made. The 24 hour day/60 minute/60 second deal was created by the Babylonians oh so many years ago and retained by the English who had great influence, and as I said is a complete man made concept. The months of the year are a creation of Augustus Caesar who even had one of the months named after himself. The 7 day week is merely a creation of the Judeo-Christian religion what with the 7th day supposed to be the sabbath, etc.

 

The Metric Time system changes all of that except the Day and the Year. There are remnants of a "Metric Calendar" in our own monthly calendar system. December literally means "10th month" even though it is now the 12th month. Before Augustus, July, which is named after Julius Caesar, was called Quintillus, or '5th month".

So, a Metric Caledar look. as follows: Primember, Duember, Triember, Quadrillus, Quintillus, Sextember, September, October, November, December. There being 10 months, each month would have either 36 or 37 days (365 divided by 10). A leap year would still be applicable and once every 4 years an extra day would be added to one of the months with only 36 days. Weeks would be 10 days, not 7. (and just like now, all weeks would not correspond exactly to fit within a single month or year.) I haven't seen a system for naming these 10 days of this 10 day week. I guess we could make one up.

 

More importantly to a football game is the division of a Day in metric time. A "Day" would be divided into 10 parts, no longer called "hours" but "Decidays" (a Deciday being approximately 2.4 of the current Anglo/Babylonian hours). It would further be divided into Centidays, or 1/100th of a day (roughly 14.40 Anglo/Babylonian minutes). Further the Day would be divided into 1/1000ths of a day, a "Milliday" (roughly 1.44 Anglo/Babylonian minutes). You can then also break down the Milliday into units of 100. Ultimately you would break the day down to a "Microday" or 1/100,000th of a day (or if you prefer, a "Metric Second" which would be somewhat shorter than our Anglo/Babylonian second, of which there are 86, 400 in a single day. Thus, a Microday would convert to .864 of an Anglo/Babylonian second).

 

OK, so How would you run an NFL game on this time system? First off, you would have probably already converted the field to a metric field of 100 meters long and 50 meters wide, which would make the field approximately 109.36 yards by about 55 yards wide. (To go 10 meters to get a First down might be tougher to do in 4 downs!).

The game, if it is to be approximately the same length as a current game could be 4 Centidays long, (essentially, today's 4 quarters, each Centiday being @14:40 A/B minutes in length). Or you could just do like soccer does and take a halftime break at the 50 Milliday mark of the game.

Is this all making sense? Could it work if in some future revolutionary world we were forced to go to a Metric time system, like the world did with other metric systems after the French Revolution?

Does any of this make sense to you? I warned you, it would be a little off the wall. To learn more about the Metric Time system see the following link:

 

http://zapatopi.net/metrictime/

[ballpeen]

10 day weeks would suck. People would have to work 8 days until the weekend, and it would be a long wait between games.

 

I guess having 2 weeks vacation would be a plus.

[Joker Boy]

I'm gonna say this is the worst idea anyone has ever had. Mr. Gipper... you're weird.

[The Gipper]

I'm gonna say this is the worst idea anyone has ever had. Mr. Gipper... you're weird.

 

Well, the Metric time system wasn't my idea. It was Robespierre and the rest of the French Revolutionaries.

And I am just the messenger, so don't shoot the messenger.

But....recall what I said: The metric system of weights, distance, mass, volume etc. that is in near universal use in the world was also invented by these same guys who proposed metric time , so apparently weird ideas such as this do sometimes come to fruition.

 

[The Gipper]

10 day weeks would suck. People would have to work 8 days until the weekend, and it would be a long wait between games.

 

I guess having 2 weeks vacation would be a plus.

 

Well, I suspect the whole concept of what the working week is, and what a weekend is may end up being revised in this system. Maybe you would be on for 7 days and off for three, or something like that.

The biggest opposition would probably come, as I said, from the fundamental religionists who would proclaim that the 7th day was ordained by God to be a day of rest.

 

If you would do a 10 day week you could probably keep most of the current days, the origins of which are in the heavens and mythology:

 

Sunday of course is named after the Sun

 

Monday, or Moonday is name after the Moon

 

Tuesday is named after the Norse God Tyr, who was the Norse equivalent of the Roman God Mars. In French, Italian, Spanish etc. this day is still named after Mars, i.e. Mardi (Mardi Gras meaning simply Fat Tuesday)

If wished, it could be changed to Marsday instead of Tuesday

 

Wednesday is named after the Norse God Wodan, who was the Norse equivalent of the Roman God Mercury. Again, in French etc. Wednesday is "Mercredi", or Mercuryday. We could change our day to that if wished.

 

Thursday is named after the Norse God Thor, the equivalent of Roman God Jupiter or Jove. In French, Thursday is "Jeudi" or Joveday. We could change that to Joveday, or Jupiterday if desired.

 

Friday is named after the Norse Goddess Frigg, the equivalent of the Roman Goddess Venus. In French etc. Friday is "Vendredi" or Venusday. Again, we could convert to that nomenclature.

 

Saturday is named after the Roman God Saturn. I guess the English decided to keep at least one of the Latin days of the week. We could obviously continue that days usage.

 

But that still gives us three more days of the week to name in the Metric calendar. The obvious thing that could be done would be to simply add names from our solar system, but, there are a couple of problems with that:

Neptuneday would be a logical add, but Uranusday may be looked down upon because people, even scientist are so juvenile about the name sounding like "your anus". Uranus was simply another of the Greek/Roman Gods. The Norse equivalent of Uranus is "Ymir". If we keep the other Norse names, Tues/Wed/Thur/Fri, perhaps for this we could add Ymir or Emirday (but that sounds too Arabic perhaps?).

Also, we once had a planet named Pluto, but the scientists got rid of that as a planet, though, I guess we could keep it for the name of a week as Pluto was still the Roman God of the Underworld, whose Greek equivalent was Hades.....and by the way, in case you didn't know, the Norse God of the underworld was: Hel. Yep, Hel is the Norse God of the underworld. That is where we get the name Hell from. Do we want a day of the week to be known as Hellday? (It would definitely have to be a weekend day).

 

So, your mission, gentlmen, if you choose to accept it, is to come up with the names of 3 more days of the week, if you don't like the above. (One suggestion: Earth, Wind, and Fire Day?)