You know, hour is made up unit. Unless they learned to keep track of time from species from different planet (or did the war changed rotation of planet?), they would most likely just divide their days into 24 hours just as we did, and their hours would be shorter.
you just said “hour is made up unit” – so why should they divide it to 24? They not humans but aliens on different planet. So they divided into 15 and each 15 was about equal to our hour
Because 12 is divisible by 2,3,4 and 6. Multiply by 5 and you get 60, so perfect number Babylonians made it base of their computing system. It’s not related to any part of our body (not that the fairies would be that different from us, and I suppose Draigjibies who probably developed this system would be same case), it’s just much better for counting if you aren’t good with fractions.
But ok. Maybe they would have different logic. But they wouldn’t ever use odd number. No civilization is going to start with “Let’s divide astronomical day to even units”. They will start by dividing day and, independently to it, night. On Earth, it took 1500 years before someone decided that length of hour should be fixed and not variable depending on what part of year it is. So if they would like number 15, their full day would have 30 hours.
The 24 hrs system were developed by Egyptians, and was based on groups of constellation called decans about 4000 years ago.
As for the fairies, they inherited that system from the draigjibies, who themselves decided to use that system for their particular needs thousands of years ago. We use a 24 hrs system because we’re stubborn and can’t shake old habits, but a lot of people would actually be in favor of a decimal system which would be more efficient. Human system or fairy system, it’s entirely arbitrary, because in either case the rotation time of the planet is NOT exactly 24 hours, or 15 hrs, or 10 hrs, it never is, we just decide it’s good enough.
The only reason why the rotation time of the planet is not EXACTLY 24 hours is rounding errors. We defined second as 1/86400 of day as measured with imprecise instruments, then redefined it in more stable terms and then didn’t wanted to fix the rounding when we noticed it’s not 1/86400 of day anymore, noting that the rotation won’t stay exactly same anyway, it’s slowing down.
Are you saying draigjibies were less stubborn and actually IMPLEMENTED one of their proposals to change from historical definition of hour? Interesting.
Or did they used different system themselves but didn’t told the fairies? 🙂
Think this not worth digging into too much – alien world populated with aliens made different clock to make their setting different from our world. That’s all 🙂
The draigjiby history is older and more complex than the fairies as they are evolved beings, and I didn’t built it all because they are not the focus of the story, but the general idea is that the fairy inherited a lot of draigjiby systems like language, math, ethics and the like, and very little of it changed because fairies live very long and all on the same island. The transmission of knowledge and tradition is easier to preserve when the previous generation stick around for hundreds of years, creating a more static society than ours.
… yes, I’m aware I’m nitpicking. It just seem bad place to put the “token alien difference” in. It would make sense if draigjiby wouldn’t originate on Dreven but I didn’t noticed THAT being mentioned anywhere.
… looking again at the clocks, do they have 56 minutes per hour?
… WAIT. She says 2:30. The fat hand is between 1 and 2. I see I overlooked bigger problem when focusing on that 15 hour day. Still, I guess I’m first to notice?
… the point about the calendar being “upgraded” however seems to be supported by fact they have “middle summer” instead of some month name. Draigjiby have long history. Unless they totally lack poetry, someone would come up with better names long before they developed the kind of bureaucracy which would make “logical” and “efficient” names like this stick.
If you really think our system of timekeeping is so natural and obvious, look up how long ago the hour was standardised. As in, how recently was an hour defined not as a specific duration, but 1/12 of the time between dawn and dusk.
Hence “On Earth, it took 1500 years before someone decided that length of hour should be fixed and not variable depending on what part of year it is.”
But the thing is … our system of timekeeping evolved, but evolved in natural and obvious way. The idea came to astronomers in 130BC, but measuring time precisely was too hard at that time ; the switch came basically at the moment where we were actually able to build enough of clocks precise enough the difference in how long hour is was obvious.
Honestly, if they have different constellations, and why wouldn’t they, then their days and months
(and weeks, if they even have something equivalent) would all be totally different, and since our arbitrary units are based on stuff that the average person has never even heard of nowadays (how long it takes to cycle through the constellations that are restricted to the ecliptic a whole number of times that is a “perfect number” in an archaic numbering system) literally ANY numbers are easily believable. And as for month names, ours were all named after politicians and gods until Rome did start changing them to numbers, so we inherited a mix from them. (January Janus, February Februus, March Mars, April second month or maybe Aphrodite depending on who you ask, May Maia, June Juno, July Julius, August Augustus, September seventh month, October eighth month, November ninth month and December tenth month.) If the fairies are a little less egotistical then they might not have bothered to come up with Name names for those pieces of the year (and months are literally “Moons” so their existence depends on the presence of a large single moon).
Months, sure, those are VERY arbitrary. Days, no. It would require VERY different civilization (or VERY different solar system, or something like tidal-locked orbit) to choose something else than the rotation of their planet related to their sun as their basic unit.
All other time units are relative to the primary unit of “one day”.
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You know, hour is made up unit. Unless they learned to keep track of time from species from different planet (or did the war changed rotation of planet?), they would most likely just divide their days into 24 hours just as we did, and their hours would be shorter.
you just said “hour is made up unit” – so why should they divide it to 24? They not humans but aliens on different planet. So they divided into 15 and each 15 was about equal to our hour
Because 12 is divisible by 2,3,4 and 6. Multiply by 5 and you get 60, so perfect number Babylonians made it base of their computing system. It’s not related to any part of our body (not that the fairies would be that different from us, and I suppose Draigjibies who probably developed this system would be same case), it’s just much better for counting if you aren’t good with fractions.
But ok. Maybe they would have different logic. But they wouldn’t ever use odd number. No civilization is going to start with “Let’s divide astronomical day to even units”. They will start by dividing day and, independently to it, night. On Earth, it took 1500 years before someone decided that length of hour should be fixed and not variable depending on what part of year it is. So if they would like number 15, their full day would have 30 hours.
again – cant give good answer myself. lore keeper, but not the author 😀
The 24 hrs system were developed by Egyptians, and was based on groups of constellation called decans about 4000 years ago.
As for the fairies, they inherited that system from the draigjibies, who themselves decided to use that system for their particular needs thousands of years ago. We use a 24 hrs system because we’re stubborn and can’t shake old habits, but a lot of people would actually be in favor of a decimal system which would be more efficient. Human system or fairy system, it’s entirely arbitrary, because in either case the rotation time of the planet is NOT exactly 24 hours, or 15 hrs, or 10 hrs, it never is, we just decide it’s good enough.
The only reason why the rotation time of the planet is not EXACTLY 24 hours is rounding errors. We defined second as 1/86400 of day as measured with imprecise instruments, then redefined it in more stable terms and then didn’t wanted to fix the rounding when we noticed it’s not 1/86400 of day anymore, noting that the rotation won’t stay exactly same anyway, it’s slowing down.
Are you saying draigjibies were less stubborn and actually IMPLEMENTED one of their proposals to change from historical definition of hour? Interesting.
Or did they used different system themselves but didn’t told the fairies? 🙂
Think this not worth digging into too much – alien world populated with aliens made different clock to make their setting different from our world. That’s all 🙂
The draigjiby history is older and more complex than the fairies as they are evolved beings, and I didn’t built it all because they are not the focus of the story, but the general idea is that the fairy inherited a lot of draigjiby systems like language, math, ethics and the like, and very little of it changed because fairies live very long and all on the same island. The transmission of knowledge and tradition is easier to preserve when the previous generation stick around for hundreds of years, creating a more static society than ours.
… yes, I’m aware I’m nitpicking. It just seem bad place to put the “token alien difference” in. It would make sense if draigjiby wouldn’t originate on Dreven but I didn’t noticed THAT being mentioned anywhere.
… looking again at the clocks, do they have 56 minutes per hour?
… WAIT. She says 2:30. The fat hand is between 1 and 2. I see I overlooked bigger problem when focusing on that 15 hour day. Still, I guess I’m first to notice?
… the point about the calendar being “upgraded” however seems to be supported by fact they have “middle summer” instead of some month name. Draigjiby have long history. Unless they totally lack poetry, someone would come up with better names long before they developed the kind of bureaucracy which would make “logical” and “efficient” names like this stick.
If you really think our system of timekeeping is so natural and obvious, look up how long ago the hour was standardised. As in, how recently was an hour defined not as a specific duration, but 1/12 of the time between dawn and dusk.
Hence “On Earth, it took 1500 years before someone decided that length of hour should be fixed and not variable depending on what part of year it is.”
But the thing is … our system of timekeeping evolved, but evolved in natural and obvious way. The idea came to astronomers in 130BC, but measuring time precisely was too hard at that time ; the switch came basically at the moment where we were actually able to build enough of clocks precise enough the difference in how long hour is was obvious.
Honestly, if they have different constellations, and why wouldn’t they, then their days and months
(and weeks, if they even have something equivalent) would all be totally different, and since our arbitrary units are based on stuff that the average person has never even heard of nowadays (how long it takes to cycle through the constellations that are restricted to the ecliptic a whole number of times that is a “perfect number” in an archaic numbering system) literally ANY numbers are easily believable. And as for month names, ours were all named after politicians and gods until Rome did start changing them to numbers, so we inherited a mix from them. (January Janus, February Februus, March Mars, April second month or maybe Aphrodite depending on who you ask, May Maia, June Juno, July Julius, August Augustus, September seventh month, October eighth month, November ninth month and December tenth month.) If the fairies are a little less egotistical then they might not have bothered to come up with Name names for those pieces of the year (and months are literally “Moons” so their existence depends on the presence of a large single moon).
Sorry for the long post. As a dyed-in-the-wool Know-it-all, I couldn’t NOT weigh in…
No problem. Thank you for you input on it
Months, sure, those are VERY arbitrary. Days, no. It would require VERY different civilization (or VERY different solar system, or something like tidal-locked orbit) to choose something else than the rotation of their planet related to their sun as their basic unit.
All other time units are relative to the primary unit of “one day”.