As far as the denizens are concerned there is no time in neotoy, and there are no clocks or timekeeping devices of any kind. Which is not to say that time does not exist in neotoy.

Time works at base unit 1/1,000,000 regulated revolution (rr) as a "second" this means that a neotoy "day" is made of 1,000,000 seconds. 100 seconds = 1 minute. 100 minutes = 1 hour, 100 hours = 1 day, 1 day in turn = 1,000,000 seconds. could it be more perfect?

The catch is a neotoy "day" is not just the day, it is the night also and is in neotoy refered to as a "semicycle". Consequently a year is referred to as a "cycle". A neotoy year is made of 100 semicycles.

In a neotoy semicycle the day/night time is partitioned along a geographically relative spectrum, but primarily is only identified as falling into one of three possible extremes:

In the Hot Region ("North" pole to Equatorial band) day = 80 hours, night = 20 hours.
In the Moderate Region (Equatorial band) day = 50 hours, night = 50 hours.
In the Cold Region ("South" Pole to Equatorial band) day = 20 hours, night = 80 hours.

Neotoy Second
1/1,000,000 revolution of the planet

Neotoy Minute
100 Neotoy Seconds

Neotoy Hour
100 Neotoy Minutes
10,000 Neotoy Seconds

Neotoy Day (semicycle)
100 Neotoy Hours (HR:d80/n20 - MR:d50/n50 - CR:d20n80)
10,000 Neotoy Minutes
1,000,000 Neotoy Seconds.

Neotoy Year (cycle)
100 Neotoy Days
10,000 Neotoy Hours
1,000,000 Neotoy Minutes
100,000,000 Neotoy Seconds

In regard to equivalency with terrestrial time and the units therein that are used for its measure. While similar words are used to represent various segments of time, a Neotoy Day is not equivalent to an Earth Day, and since the proportional units are all metrically derived rather than arbitrarily defined there is no way to compare them relationally either.

I will however provide a base level equivalency so that it will be possible for anyone to calculate the approximate conversion. An Earth Second is equivalent to approximately 0.864 Neotoy Seconds. Please see the additional information detailed below for a comprehensive overview of my research and speculation regarding relational time keeping methods.

November 26, 2006 : Metric Time and Dynamic Time drafts

Introduction: I have been kicking around the idea of real and practical metric time for about three and a half years now, but each time I started working on a daft specification I was derailed by various interruptions. As you may be aware, Neotoy has always had a working metric time system, this is because the entire universe has been created from scratch. The real world however is not so cooperative. Anyway I was working on my date code and thinking to myself all the while, I sure wish I could just use a metric calender, because then this would be easy and I wouldn't have to factor so many damn random variables. So, and not to make a pun here, but it seemed like the right time to finally finish the draft for this sucker.

With terrestrial time there is basically one cosmological "constant" that has provided the essential framework for us to measure the fourth dimension. And that is the astronomical relationship between two interstellar bodies. First there is the rate at which the earth orbits the star at the center of our solar system; we call this period of time a year. Second there is the additional constant that we have labeled day.

Although this term itself is misleading as our solar day, is actually a day and a night. Regardless this is the period of time it takes the earth to turn on its axis. The relevant information here is that in the period of one solar year, the earth experiences approximately 365 solar days. Technically speaking there is no way around this number, excluding the possibility of changing the orbital velocity of the earth and/or its individual axis rotational velocity.

So then, once again, technically speaking, how do we apply the metric system to these interstellar constants which are fundamentally not metric? Well first off, we start making changes where no special calculations are required. The solar day, a period of 24 hours, has been divided into entirely arbitrary segments. This is to say, it could just as easily divided into 56 segments, or 7. Ideally however we will used the number 10. A number which ironically has no more special significance than 24 in the greater scheme of things.

However the number 10 and its multiples are used with the best results in all other dimensional measurement systems. Volume, weight, etc. Obviously the advantages of converting our time keeping systems to the metric standard are significant enough to justify a transition. Undoubtedly an additional bonus to making time metric will be an increased level of insight into the interrelationships between the four dimensions. Patterns that would otherwise remain invisible due to the arbitrary segmentation of time, will be revealed as new standard based convergences reveal themselves. See the table below for a simplified analysis of metric time.

R
1R = 1 Revolution of the earth on its axis.
1R = 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86400 seconds.
1R = 10S
1R = 100T
1R = 1,000U
1R = 10,000V
1R = 100,000W
1R = 1,000,000X
S
1S = 2.4 hours, 144 minutes, 8640 seconds.
0.5xS = 1.2 hours, 72 minutes.
5.0xS = 12 hours, 720 minutes.
1S = 10T
1S = 100U
T
1T = 14.4 minutes, 864 seconds.
1T = 10U
U
1U = 1.44 minutes, 86.4 seconds.
1U = 10V
V
1V = 8.64 seconds
1V = 10W
W
1W = 0.864 seconds
1W = 10X
X
1X = 0.0864 seconds

OK, so that was the easy part, and now it begins to get a little more sketchy. Or not, depending on your point of view. The most logical step would be to continue up the scale starting with the solar day unit "R". Now at this point it should be obvious to anyone, that no matter how we arrange the consecutive segments they are never going to add up to 365, the best they can do is either 100 or 1000. 100 being 265 units shy, and 1000 being 635 units over the top. 10 the most logical, is likewise the least practical.

So in the end we have two choices, we can violate the integrity of the metric succession, or we can ignore the interstellar constant and designate an artificial solar year equal to 1000, 100, or 10 solar days. The consequences of this are apparent, our familiar four seasons will no longer be relevant as each artificial year may contain any number of seasons, or none at all. This is pretty hard to imagine, although in all reality probably not very significant.



The illustration above is a scalable visual map of an entire metric year including all consecutive units of measure proceeding R. This is a metric year in the strictest sense, each week is 10 days, each month has ten weeks, and there are in total 10 months to every year. This is 1000 solar days, or approximately 2.7 standard solar years. All in all, not entirely impossible to imagine.

Additionally the calendar has been broken into halves, in my opinion this allows for a more flexible perception of the metric system and its practical relationship to the physical reality it is representing. This also makes it easier for people still using the old calendar to adapt, as 1/2 of each metric year is 500 days, only 135 days longer than a standard solar year. And each day is likewise broken into two 5 hour segments, providing a convenient substitute for the familiar perception of the standard 12+12 hour day/night cycle.

Initially in this second phase of the design process I began to really have my doubts. If we revisit all the segments below the R threshold for a moment, even though the math is based essentially on a "constant"; the reality of the situation is that no day is exactly 24 hours, nor is every day always evenly split with 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. So when this enigma becomes our focus we realize very quickly that it is in fact the defining factor of any reliable time system. The truth is that even the current system does not work very well, and it is essentially bent in such a way that it will accommodate human biology and expectations while still appearing to be mathematically relevant. Really a monumental design failure.

Ideally what is the solution to this problem. I begin to ask myself, what if we designed time in such a way that it fundamentally conformed to our biology? For example what if the value 6:00AM was assigned to the geologically specific sunrise of the timekeeper? And sunset was always 9:00PM. This would of course mean that the time segments on both sides of 6 and 9 would need to be dynamically adjusted for every single day of every single year.

Meaning essentially that an hour one day may be 70 minutes, while an hour another day might be 50 minutes. Of course for the system to really be accurate it would require moment by moment modifications, so technically speaking the hour representing 6-7 may actually be shorter or longer than the hour representing 7-8. Ultimately this kind of time keeping system would really just be recreating our natural biological time sensitivity and representing it numerically. It is also important to note that it would be impossible to keep timekeepers synchronized internationally without a sophisticated network of sensors and broadcast systems. The internet for example, or the GPS satellite network.