Replace Greenwich Mean Time?

[BPSCG]

Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7359258.stm)


Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north. :biggrin: How?

Mecca's Main Street lines up perfectly with magnetic north? Since magnetic north changes over time, are they constantly doing road work on Mecca Main Street to keep it in alignment?

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed. :biggrin: Yes, because the fact that the entire world uses GMT as the standard is so intolerable that everyone must go through a massive Y2K-type effort to reprogram all their clocks and watches to use MMT as the standard.

A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray. :biggrin: I wonder what this prominent cleric thinks about what modern science has to say about evolution.


The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.
:biggrin: It runs backwards. How appropriate.



The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".
The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence. :biggrin: Form your conclusions, then find the evidence. Creationist "scientists" couldn't say it any better.

[mrbaracuda]

Qaradawi taking part, huh? Who would have thought. Oh those Muslims.

[dudalb]

I doubt this is gonna happen anytime soon.

[jsiv]

Oh no they didn't!

You don't wanna mess with GMT.

It is the MEANEST time on earth.

[Aitch]

A couple of points:

1. GMT was replaced by UTC some years ago.
2. IIRC magnetic north and south are about due to swap in the next few years. Which probably won't confuse too many clerics. I suppose they could always redefine north and south?

[Madalch]

They're still discussing this?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=72734

[ddt]

Apart from all the humbug in the article justifying why in any way Mecca time would be "better", a couple of nitpicks:
He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.
Well, there he's right isn't he? The English imposed their Greenwich meridian system on the world when they were the world power, and consequently we began using GMT as the "standard time".

Not the whole world agrees, BTW. Michelin, the French tyre manufacturer and map maker, still uses the Paris meridian in its maps of France.

:biggrin: Yes, because the fact that the entire world uses GMT as the standard is so intolerable that everyone must go through a massive Y2K-type effort to reprogram all their clocks and watches to use MMT as the standard.

What do you mean with this? You're not setting your watch to GMT, do you, but to EST or whatever timezone you're in? My major hassle with my watch is setting it to daylight savings time and back, two adjustments per year.

But as said before by other posters: we don't use GMT anymore, we use UTC; it's derived from UT1 - the real successor of GMT, solar time in Greenwich - by adding leap seconds, which are needed because the earth's rotational velocity slowly decreases, to keep it in line with atomic time TT, which is the true "absolute" time.

Your car navigation system uses GPS time, which does not have leap seconds, so it's 14 seconds out of sync with UTC. Do you still follow? :D Oh, and some people want to abolish the leap second...

Time is a tricky business...

[gtc]

Well, there he's right isn't he? The English imposed their Greenwich meridian system on the world when they were the world power, and consequently we began using GMT as the "standard time".

But did they impose it by force? I doubt it, but I would genuinely like to know.

[Fnord]

The whole idea makes about as much sense as making Tupelo, Mississippi the center of the Earth simply because Elvis Presley was born there.

[Madalch]

The whole idea makes about as much sense as making Tupelo, Mississippi the center of the Earth simply because Elvis Presley was born there.
I think DragonRock will find that a perfectly sensible idea.

[fuelair]

Quote:
The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.



Are you sure that quote didn't say "brainfart" rather than "brainchild"?

[mrbaracuda]

Quote:
The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.



Are you sure that quote didn't say "brainfart" rather than "brainchild"?

Islamizing France might have been the wrong way to go. It doesn't seem to help in becoming "the pinnacle of science" again for some reason. :D

[BenBurch]

...

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.

...

Well, I'm sure that uses the trick you can do with any watch that has hands that usually is used to find an approximation of north.

See here; http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/compass.html

[BenBurch]

on the OP: I thought we DID replace GMT quite some time ago!

There is this little thing called Coordinated Universal Time that has nothing to do with the Greenwich meridian other than being really close to GMT...

[uk_dave]

I thought we all used 'Zulu' time nowadays.

[TriangleMan]

Just when I think that this country is starting to get it together in terms of science and education something bizarre like this has to come along. Mecca is aligned with magnetic north?? Mecca is the center of the Earth?? *slams head against desk*

[Beerina]

Earth really isn't based on GMT anymore. Scientists with atomic clocks tell the world when to add a leap second here and there. GMT as the 0-hour is just kind of a cute anachronism.

You wanna know the real time, you don't look up GMT. You turn on your GPS receiver or turn on a clock that listens to the atomic time broadcast out of Colorado.

[sophia8]

The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".
The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.
Yawn. Yet another bunch of religious nuts (http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian.uttar-pradesh/browse_thread/thread/5917decf81c05ffe/f3122ab5c1540198) claiming that their culture/religion invented everything (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMlisMg4VPo) before the West.

[Just thinking]

Wasn't GMT chosen as the standard location for logical reasons as well as political? I mean, it placed the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean --- rather convenient, no? That way you don't have little issues like going across town and changing days in the process. Where would it fall if Mecca was used?

[Safe-Keeper]

Gasp! A culture that sees itself as the centre of Earth? How unheard of:D!

[BPSCG]

Wasn't GMT chosen as the standard location for logical reasons as well as political? I mean, it placed the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean --- rather convenient, no? That way you don't have little issues like going across town and changing days in the process. Where would it fall if Mecca was used?Would still be pretty much in the middle of the Pacific, only about 39 degrees farther east of where it is now, i.e., closer to Hawaii. I couldn't find any significant population centers that would be affected.

FWIW, Moscow, Russia, is about same longitude as Mecca. Don't let Putin find out.

[Spindrift]

Wasn't GMT chosen as the standard location for logical reasons as well as political? I mean, it placed the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean --- rather convenient, no? That way you don't have little issues like going across town and changing days in the process. Where would it fall if Mecca was used?

Huh? It really doesn't matter where the line is, 2 PM Eastern Standard would still be 2 PM Eastern Standard. Just that instead of being defined as UTC -5, it would be MTZ -8 (Mecca Time Zone). Not that I think it's a good idea. Sorry, ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Darth Rotor]

If those Muslim meatheads would read the excellent book Longitude, they'd understand why this convention was in use for so long, and how it led to UCT.

Glad to see they are so wrapped up in what is critical to peace on earth and the blessings of Allah (may His camel fart silently.)

I was living on Zulu time decades before some of these prats had their brain fart.

The War on Stupid is a forever war.

DR

[Hokulele]

Would still be pretty much in the middle of the Pacific, only about 39 degrees farther east of where it is now, i.e., closer to Hawaii. I couldn't find any significant population centers that would be affected.

FWIW, Moscow, Russia, is about same longitude as Mecca. Don't let Putin find out.


The Date Line is a pretty trivial consideration anyway, as any country can choose where it runs relative to their territory. It has some extremely odd squiggles through much of Polynesia right around the equator. Much of this is due to the whole Y2K thing where a number of the smaller countries were vying to be the first to enter the new millenium.

[Darth Rotor]

The Date Line is a pretty trivial consideration anyway, as any country can choose where it runs relative to their territory. It has some extremely odd squiggles through much of Polynesia right around the equator. Much of this is due to the whole Y2K thing where a number of the smaller countries were vying to be the first to enter the new millenium.

Afghanistan is on GMT + 3 1/2 hours.

Don't ask how I know that.

Speaking of watch experts and Afghanistan, any heard from Antique Hunter lately?

I miss his input.

DR

[Just thinking]

Huh? It really doesn't matter where the line is, 2 PM Eastern Standard would still be 2 PM Eastern Standard.

Do you mean the IDL? If so, I wouldn't agree so much with that, as I think it running through a major country would not be a good thing. Remember, the IDL runs opposite whatever is the longitudinal Universal Time Line. I just wasn't sure where it (IDL) would end up if it (UTL) were moved to Mecca.

Just that instead of being defined as UTC -5, it would be MTZ -8 (Mecca Time Zone). Not that I think it's a good idea. Sorry, ain't broke, don't fix it.

I hope I never implied that the above would not be the case. Local time is always that, local time.

[Aitch]

The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".
The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.

About ten years ago,I worked with a fundamentalist Muslim who swore blind that ALL modern science was in the Koran, including the General Theory of Relativity. It was just that he couldn't remember quite where it was in the copy that someone had brought in for him to show us. Plus, of course, it was an English translated version, so was probably inaccurate.

To avoid me being called Islamophobic, there was also a fundy Christian in the office who, whenever evolution was discussed, would put his hands over his ears and repeat "There is no evidence" in an increasingly loud voice until we discussed something else.

[Darat]

I've been to Greenwich many times and I've never felt I could describe my visit as a mean time. Always seems rather unfair to the place.

[ddt]

But did they impose it by force? I doubt it, but I would genuinely like to know.

Sorry I overlooked that word. I don't think so.

GMT was adopted at the International Meridian Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Conference) as the universal time. Turkey, which then stretched over the whole Middle East, also attended the conference and voted in favor.

An interesting tidbit is that the conference decided a new day should start at midnight, but the astronomers still used noon as the start of a new day until 1925.

[ddt]

Earth really isn't based on GMT anymore. Scientists with atomic clocks tell the world when to add a leap second here and there. GMT as the 0-hour is just kind of a cute anachronism.
Actually, some USians have proposed to abolish those leap seconds! Just when the POSIX standard has been updated to reflect them...

You wanna know the real time, you don't look up GMT. You turn on your GPS receiver or turn on a clock that listens to the atomic time broadcast out of Colorado.
Or you configure your computer to use NTP and to ask the time from a computer which is attached to an atomic clock :)

[richardm]

I've been to Greenwich many times and I've never felt I could describe my visit as a mean time. Always seems rather unfair to the place.

I did refuse to go 50:50 on lunch because my then girlfriend had ice-cream and I didn't. I told her I was entering into the spirit of Greenwich but she didn't seem impressed.

[BenBurch]

My home town, Elgin, IL, was the source of time signals for most of the railroads in the country for many years. This was a service of the Elgin National Watch Company, which had an observatory with a transit instrument and a pair of very accurate pendulum clocks which were regulated by the observed transit of stars.

The observatory still stands and is owned by the school district. For a time there was a very robust astronomy program here in the public schools, but current administration was forced to nearly end it due to the "no child left behind" act which made it impossible to devote classroom time to astronomy.

-Ben

[Denver]

In a time of such massive information distribution, I think we should extend the standard times to include PTS (Personal Time System). We can each have our own personal time. Whenever someone says "Meet me at noon", it means noon my time. Moreover, whenever someone says "Wake me at lunch", it means whenever I eat lunch. A Bank would say it pays interest at "Midnight BANK time" - which could be very profitable for the bank if it moves this around, so we'd need special Time-System legislation and lobbyists.

I haven't read too much by Neal Stephenson, but I'm starting to feel he'd be right at home with this.

[RandFan]

"Does anybody really know what time it is?" --Robert Lamm

[linusrichard]

I'm no laissez-faire type, but I think this is a perfect issue to be solved by the invisible hand of the marketplace.

If people want to switch, let them switch. If people want to stick with status quo, let them stick. Whichever system prevails will only do so by being the better system, so either way we end up with the better of the two. Win-win.

[Wildy]

I'm no laissez-faire type, but I think this is a perfect issue to be solved by the invisible hand of the marketplace.

If people want to switch, let them switch. If people want to stick with status quo, let them stick. Whichever system prevails will only do so by being the better system, so either way we end up with the better of the two. Win-win.

Let the market determine time???

New from Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash: Time.