Measuring time is simple. It is just a linearly increasing number, right?
No. We humans have additional demands.
1. We want a part of the number to be the same for the time of day.
2. We want a part of the number to be the same for the day of year.
This is fundamentally impossible, because:
1. The year does not have an integer number of days, so we use lap years.
2. The day is the duration of a complete turn of Earth around itself, but the duration is slowly changing, this means the duration of the day won't stay the same, so we use lap seconds.
3. Year and day lose their meaning if we leave the Earth.
4. The time of the day is different for different parts of the Earth (solved by timezones).
We should use an epoch-based time for points in time, i. e. just a number, and convert it to the date-time whenever neccessary. The exact form of the date-time is not important, only that we already understand it.
Switching to decimal time does not help: it does not solve the fundamental problem, however we would need to relearn the time of day. It is similar to switching to Dvorak.
No. We humans have additional demands.
1. We want a part of the number to be the same for the time of day.
2. We want a part of the number to be the same for the day of year.
This is fundamentally impossible, because:
1. The year does not have an integer number of days, so we use lap years.
2. The day is the duration of a complete turn of Earth around itself, but the duration is slowly changing, this means the duration of the day won't stay the same, so we use lap seconds.
3. Year and day lose their meaning if we leave the Earth.
4. The time of the day is different for different parts of the Earth (solved by timezones).
We should use an epoch-based time for points in time, i. e. just a number, and convert it to the date-time whenever neccessary. The exact form of the date-time is not important, only that we already understand it.
Switching to decimal time does not help: it does not solve the fundamental problem, however we would need to relearn the time of day. It is similar to switching to Dvorak.