Checklist For The Next Revolution

A revolution is an ideal opportunity to change the basic way that things are done. Remember that the Metric System, that is used across the world, is a product of the French Revolution. It may never have caught on without it's use being driven by that revolution.

I am not necessarily saying that there should be a revolution. But here are some ideas for basic changes in the way things are done whenever the next revolution should come along.

NAMING THE WEEKS

Last week we saw my calendar, the Space Age Calendar. As a related issue I wonder why we don't name the weeks, instead of the months. Almost everyone lives much more by the week than by the month. The months were originally based on the lunar cycle but the week has been more important than the month since the Industrial Revolution.

It is a great inconvenience that we cannot express weeks by name. We have to use awkward terms like "about six weeks ago" or "the week of December 2-9". We use the month to express the week, but the week is far more important for most people.

There are 52 weeks in a year with one day left over, two days left over every four years. 

I also think that the year should begin on either perihelion, January 4 when the earth is closest to the sun, or aphelion, July 4 when it is furthest from the sun. January 1 was randomly chosen in ancient times to begin the year.

America has 50 states, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. How would Americans like a calendar that begins on what is now the Fourth of July, which also happens to be aphelion, with each week named for a state?

Most of the world usually goes by the Gregorian Calendar. But even those that don't use it agree on the days of the week. Just as the days of the week are expressed in different languages now, it will not be necessary to agree on names for the weeks. Everyone can call them whatever they want.

COUNTING BY TWELVES

In the compound posting, "Measurements" September 2021, we saw how much better off we would be if we counted by twelves. We count by tens, because we have ten fingers, but twelve is much more evenly divisible than ten and so more efficient.

We instinctively revert to counting by twelves wherever divisibility is important, including the hours in a day. Eggs are sold by the dozen because it is more likely to be evenly divisible among the members of a family. For the number of seconds in a minute and minutes in an hour we use a nice round evenly-divisible number that is a multiple of twelve. We use the same principle for the 360 degrees in a circle.

In fact I consider counting by tens, rather than by twelves, to be one of the greatest mistakes that humans have ever made.

Also on that compound posting is how we could benefit from revised definitions of the coulomb and the meter, both of which are arbitrary units.

A coulomb is the unit of electric charge. A flow of one coulomb per second is called an ampere. A mole is the number of atoms or molecules in a sample of matter whose mass in grams is equal to the atomic or molecular weight of the atoms or molecules. 

A coulomb is close to, but not quite, being one ten-thousandth of Avogadro's Number, which is the basis of the mole. Since electrons come from atoms I think it would be very useful and convenient to redefine the coulomb, which is the number of electrons, as one ten-thousandth of a mole.

The acceleration due to gravity of a falling object is 9.8 meters per second squared. Since we are now in the era of aerial warfare and space travel, and since units of the Metric System are supposed to be based on multiples of ten, wouldn't it be better to shorten the definition of the meter a little bit so that the acceleration due to gravity was exactly 10 meters per second squared?

THE CHARGE CONUNDRUM

What I refer to by this is that there are negative and positive electric charges. We have arbitrarily deemed the charge on an electron to be negative and that on the proton positive.

The trouble with this is that the plus and minus signs that we use to denote positive and negative also mean gaining and losing. When an atom loses an electron it results in the atom having a net positive charge, a positive ion. Likewise when an atom gains an electron it ends up with a net negative charge.

It doesn't sound like it makes sense. Wouldn't it be better to say that the electron has a positive charge and the proton a negative charge? This is actually what antimatter is.

MISNOMERS

There are still misnomers around, which are gradually being corrected. There used to be "tidal waves", except that they are caused by undersea earthquakes and have nothing to do with tides. A better term is the Japanese word for it, "tsunami".

We are in the Space Age but there are still references to "the dark side of the moon". The same side of the moon always faces earth and this refers to the side that faces away from earth.

But not only is it not "the dark side of the moon", it actually gets more sunlight than the side that faces earth. I say that the far side gets more sunlight because it is totally facing the sun (new moon) when it is between the earth and the sun, meaning closer to the sun, while the side that faces the earth is totally facing the sun (full moon) when the moon is on the opposite side of earth from the sun, meaning further from the sun.

NATIONAL SYMBOLS

So many nations have vicious wild predators, such as lions and eagles, as their national symbols. How much sense does it make to have a predator as the national symbol, and then lock people in prison for conducting themselves like the national symbol?

Why don't we have plants as our national symbols? Canada has the maple leaf. But this does not mean marijuana.

This is being written near the city of Buffalo and I have always thought that the buffalo would make a better symbol for America than the eagle. There are eagles in much of the world but the buffalo is more uniquely American.