Comment on I'm just better
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days agoAs a true believer in SI units, nonetheless:
When was it [the “second”, the smallest unit of time-measure under insanity-rules for unit hierarchy] defined as a constant, by whom, and against what reference?
I have to notice, as a long-time student of being-a-person - for ~most folks, a “second” is reasonably close to the length of a single heartbeat. It’s imprecise (badly depending on lots of stuff), and so maybe I’m just finding coincidence that has nothing to do with anything.
BUT if we’re talkin bout earliest references for attempting to “measure” ongoing time, I mean, look no further, fellow probable-human-with-heartbeat!
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
60 bpm is about typical for a resting heart rate, I suppose. So that could make sense.
About as much sense as positing that humans use decimal numeral systems (ignoring whatever the fuck the Romans used) because they have ten fingers.
No way to really confirm, but it seems a likely guess.
I wonder if Parmenides talks about it at all…
Also, how did they even standardize this before digital clocks? Like did the first clock maker tell all his apprentices “This clock ticks every second. One tick is one second. Every clock you make must tick at exactly the same rate.”
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Easy-peasy, first clock-maker set their metronome to 60 bpm, fiddled with the fiddly bits on the clock until no one could hear a difference. Said to apprentices, “see?”