Interesting ideas, but I‘d say no chance for adaption. Mainly because most people have no need for global scheduling. They would have to adapt to a completely unfamiliar system, without any advantages for them.
For similar reasons, the French Republican calendar or the Soviet Revolution calendar weren’t successful. Interesting though that the French Republican calendar already tried to use a decimal system for timing with ten hours a day and hundred minutes an hour.
Interesting argument, and you’re totally right that they highlight how tricky it is to get people to adopt a new time system, especially when the benefits aren’t screamingly obvious. I hear you loud and clear: for most folks, global scheduling isn’t a daily itch that needs scratching, so why bother with something like GPTS? Fair point. But let me toss out a few reasons why I’m still hopeful it could have a shot in today’s world—maybe not for everyone, but for enough people to matter.
The Global Life Is Real Now: Back when the French tried their decimal time or the Soviets pushed their reforms, most people were rooted in one place, living local lives. Fast forward to now—remote work, international teams, and digital nomads are everywhere. I’ve got friends juggling calls between New York, Tokyo, and Berlin, and they’re constantly cursing time zones. GPTS could be a universal fix for that mess, a single time everyone could sync to without the mental gymnastics. That’s a pain point those older systems never had to tackle.
Tech Smooths the Switch: Unlike those past experiments, we’ve got tools today that make change less of a shock. Think about it—your phone already flips between time zones or shows you dual clocks if you need it. GPTS could just be an extra layer, not a total replacement. You’d still use local time for grabbing coffee with a friend, but switch to GPTS for a global meeting. It’s not about forcing everyone to ditch what they know—it’s about adding something practical for the stuff that’s already global.
It Feels Human, Not Just Math: I love that you mentioned the French Republican calendar’s ten-hour days and hundred-minute hours—super interesting, but yeah, it felt detached from how we live. GPTS, though? Each “pulse” is 0.864 seconds, pretty close to a heartbeat. That’s not some random decimal obsession; it’s a rhythm we instinctively get. It’s less about rewriting time from scratch and more about syncing it to something we already feel.
It Could Start Small: You’re spot on—most people don’t care about global scheduling yet. But some do: tech companies, finance folks, scientists working across borders. If GPTS catches on with them first, it could spread naturally, kind of like how UTC quietly became the internet’s timekeeper. The French and Soviet systems were top-down mandates that flopped—GPTS could grow from the ground up, driven by people who actually need it.
Getting traction would be an uphill climb. People hate change unless it’s worth it, and cultural habits die hard. But in a world where we’re already rethinking how we work and connect across the planet, maybe a system like GPTS could sneak in by solving real, modern headaches.
I’ve been mulling over how tricky it can be to coordinate across time zones—scheduling meetings, syncing software, or even just chatting with friends globally. It got me thinking about a possible idea: the Global Pulse Time System (GPTS). Basically, it’s a universal time system that splits each day into 100,000 "pulses," starting at midnight UTC. Each pulse is about 0.864 seconds, and it resets daily (so you’d see times like P000000 to P099999).
You might be wondering why it’s called "pulses." The name "pulse" evokes a sense of rhythm, much like a heartbeat—a fundamental, repeating beat we all know. In GPTS, each pulse lasts about 0.864 seconds, which is remarkably close to the average human heartbeat at rest (around 0.83 seconds). This heartbeat analogy makes the system feel intuitive, almost like time is ticking along with our own natural rhythm.
Beyond that, GPTS might actually feel more natural for tracking time progression. Unlike our traditional system of 24 hours, 60 minutes, and 60 seconds, it uses a straightforward decimal setup: 100,000 pulses per day. That means P050000 is exactly half a day, and P025000 is a quarter—simple fractions that are easy to grasp without mental gymnastics. Plus, with a daily reset at midnight UTC, there’s a universal starting line that keeps time consistent worldwide.
The thought is to ditch time zone math altogether. If I say, “Let’s meet at P050000,” that’s the exact same moment for everyone, no matter where you are. It could make scheduling a breeze, cut down on coding headaches with time zones, or even give systems like blockchain a consistent global clock.
That said, I’m not blind to the downsides. People love their local sunrise and sunset cues, and getting everyone to switch would be a nightmare. I’m just curious if something like this could ever make sense in our digital age, or if there’s a better way to tackle global time chaos. What do you all think? Rip it apart or build on it—I’d love to hear your takes!
All about time is about the use of time. So what is your use-case?
Time is either some "point in time" (like a date) or "duration". Your use-case is not the first one because a "point in time" is bound to a location (it 10am in Paris,FR ... not 10am). As a duration, it's only really usable as a duration inside the same 24h period... and for this everybody already has the second. The replacement of a base 86400 by a base 100000 does not really seem to me as a game-changer (not for computer and not really for humans either) so I don't think that anybody will take the time to use it somewhere.
I think that if you want to work on "time", you could help with 2 "hard" problems :
* calendars : the main PITA is more that months dont have the same length in days (not even for the same month in case of february) and neither the same number of "workable" days. Some calendars try to help by using 13 * 28 days month (each month=7 days weeks... so same count of workable days). That kind of calendar is used in finance I think but not really sure
* outside earth (meaning lunar, martian... really Universal) time duration & calendar : for now, our calendar and time mesurement is based on earth rotation on itself (night/day succession) and around the sun (seasons succession). These notions dont have a lot of sense on earth or on mars... or outside our solar system... So: should we use some kind of percentage of total revolution or that kind of thing ?
I think that tackling that kind of problem could be more a game changer that building a system to replace 1 second by a pulse with a duration of 0.864 second. YMMV
I think Swatch Internet Time is more practical in day-to-day use. Swatch Internet Time divides the day into 1,000 units instead of 100,000 so is much more succinct. People rarely need <1 sec precision when communicating with each other, and when they do, they can just use decimals.
stefanfis|10 months ago
For similar reasons, the French Republican calendar or the Soviet Revolution calendar weren’t successful. Interesting though that the French Republican calendar already tried to use a decimal system for timing with ten hours a day and hundred minutes an hour.
xkcdz|10 months ago
The Global Life Is Real Now: Back when the French tried their decimal time or the Soviets pushed their reforms, most people were rooted in one place, living local lives. Fast forward to now—remote work, international teams, and digital nomads are everywhere. I’ve got friends juggling calls between New York, Tokyo, and Berlin, and they’re constantly cursing time zones. GPTS could be a universal fix for that mess, a single time everyone could sync to without the mental gymnastics. That’s a pain point those older systems never had to tackle.
Tech Smooths the Switch: Unlike those past experiments, we’ve got tools today that make change less of a shock. Think about it—your phone already flips between time zones or shows you dual clocks if you need it. GPTS could just be an extra layer, not a total replacement. You’d still use local time for grabbing coffee with a friend, but switch to GPTS for a global meeting. It’s not about forcing everyone to ditch what they know—it’s about adding something practical for the stuff that’s already global.
It Feels Human, Not Just Math: I love that you mentioned the French Republican calendar’s ten-hour days and hundred-minute hours—super interesting, but yeah, it felt detached from how we live. GPTS, though? Each “pulse” is 0.864 seconds, pretty close to a heartbeat. That’s not some random decimal obsession; it’s a rhythm we instinctively get. It’s less about rewriting time from scratch and more about syncing it to something we already feel.
It Could Start Small: You’re spot on—most people don’t care about global scheduling yet. But some do: tech companies, finance folks, scientists working across borders. If GPTS catches on with them first, it could spread naturally, kind of like how UTC quietly became the internet’s timekeeper. The French and Soviet systems were top-down mandates that flopped—GPTS could grow from the ground up, driven by people who actually need it.
Getting traction would be an uphill climb. People hate change unless it’s worth it, and cultural habits die hard. But in a world where we’re already rethinking how we work and connect across the planet, maybe a system like GPTS could sneak in by solving real, modern headaches.
xkcdz|10 months ago
You might be wondering why it’s called "pulses." The name "pulse" evokes a sense of rhythm, much like a heartbeat—a fundamental, repeating beat we all know. In GPTS, each pulse lasts about 0.864 seconds, which is remarkably close to the average human heartbeat at rest (around 0.83 seconds). This heartbeat analogy makes the system feel intuitive, almost like time is ticking along with our own natural rhythm.
Beyond that, GPTS might actually feel more natural for tracking time progression. Unlike our traditional system of 24 hours, 60 minutes, and 60 seconds, it uses a straightforward decimal setup: 100,000 pulses per day. That means P050000 is exactly half a day, and P025000 is a quarter—simple fractions that are easy to grasp without mental gymnastics. Plus, with a daily reset at midnight UTC, there’s a universal starting line that keeps time consistent worldwide.
The thought is to ditch time zone math altogether. If I say, “Let’s meet at P050000,” that’s the exact same moment for everyone, no matter where you are. It could make scheduling a breeze, cut down on coding headaches with time zones, or even give systems like blockchain a consistent global clock.
That said, I’m not blind to the downsides. People love their local sunrise and sunset cues, and getting everyone to switch would be a nightmare. I’m just curious if something like this could ever make sense in our digital age, or if there’s a better way to tackle global time chaos. What do you all think? Rip it apart or build on it—I’d love to hear your takes!
olivierduval|10 months ago
Time is either some "point in time" (like a date) or "duration". Your use-case is not the first one because a "point in time" is bound to a location (it 10am in Paris,FR ... not 10am). As a duration, it's only really usable as a duration inside the same 24h period... and for this everybody already has the second. The replacement of a base 86400 by a base 100000 does not really seem to me as a game-changer (not for computer and not really for humans either) so I don't think that anybody will take the time to use it somewhere.
I think that if you want to work on "time", you could help with 2 "hard" problems :
* calendars : the main PITA is more that months dont have the same length in days (not even for the same month in case of february) and neither the same number of "workable" days. Some calendars try to help by using 13 * 28 days month (each month=7 days weeks... so same count of workable days). That kind of calendar is used in finance I think but not really sure
* outside earth (meaning lunar, martian... really Universal) time duration & calendar : for now, our calendar and time mesurement is based on earth rotation on itself (night/day succession) and around the sun (seasons succession). These notions dont have a lot of sense on earth or on mars... or outside our solar system... So: should we use some kind of percentage of total revolution or that kind of thing ?
I think that tackling that kind of problem could be more a game changer that building a system to replace 1 second by a pulse with a duration of 0.864 second. YMMV
teovall|10 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time