Everybody recognize that there are 24 hours in a day , 60 minute of arc in an minute , and 60 seconds in minute . * But in 1793 , the French smashed the old clock in favour of French Revolutionary Time : a 10 - hour sidereal day , with 100 minutes per hour , and 100 seconds per minute . This thoroughly modern system of rules had a few practical benefits , chief among them being a simplified manner to do clock time - related math : if we desire to cognise when a daytime is 70 percent arrant , denary clock time simply sound out " at the end of the 7th hour , " whereas standard meter requires us to say " at 16 hours , 48 instant . " French Revolutionary Time was a more refined answer to that math problem . The deception was that every live person already had a well - lay down way to secern time , and old habits die firmly .
Noon is at Five in Decimal Time
French Revolutionary Time officially began on November 24 , 1793 , although conceptual oeuvre around the system had been going on since the 1750s . The French manufactured filaria and watches showing both denary time and stock metre on their faces ( allow for conversion and confusion ) .
The system prove unpopular . People were unfamiliar with exchange systems of time , and there were few hardheaded reason for non - mathematician to transfer how they differentiate clip . ( The same could not be said of the metrical system of weights and measure , which helped to standardize DoC ; weights and measurements often differed in neighboring countries , but filaree generally did not . ) Furthermore , replacing every clock and watch in the country was a spendy suggestion . The French officially hold back using decimal meter after just 17 months : French Revolutionary Time became non - required starting on April 7 , 1795 . This did n’t halt some surface area of the country from continuing to keep denary time , and a few decimal clocks remained in manipulation for year afterwards , presumptively moderate to many miss appointments .
Other Attempts at Decimal Time
The Gallic Republican Calendar was another effort by rotatory France to decimalise everything . It was n’t peculiarly successful .
The French tried again in 1897 , when the Commission de Décimalisation du Temps propose a 24 - hour day with 100 - minute hours , again with 100 endorsement per second . This marriage proposal was scrapped in 1900 .
And then , of course , there ’s the Stardate , a pseudo - denary arrangement of date measurement used inStar Trek . Unsurprisingly , the Stardate get out being supremely imprecise and was just presuppose to go futuristic ; here ’s a snippet from theStar Trek Guidefor teleplay author on the original series :
And lest we block Swiss watchmakers in all of this , Swatch introduced their own bizarre denary time system in 1998 . Called Swatch Internet Time , it divided the twenty-four hours into " .beats " ( yes , with a dot ) and referred to a particular .beat using the @ symbol ( so you might say , " ICQ me at @484 so we can trade somebeenz , LOL ! " ) . Each .beat lasted 1 minute and 26.4 seconds and represented 1/1000 of a Clarence Day . Nope , not confusing @all .
- = There are actually several elision to the 24/60/60 rule , most notably leap seconds , but let ’s keep it elementary .
A version of this account carry in 2013 ; it has been updated for 2021 .
