Comment on Fictional
shneancy@lemmy.world 15 hours agoproton masses are rather small - inconvenient
the distance light travels at a certain time - then it’ll just be based on our artificial units of time
cesium oscillation i don’t know much about but from what i quickly read it’s also about keeping time, 1s to be precise, which is still an arbitrary unit
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
Time can be non arbitrarily defined as a round number value of times cesium oscillates between two hyperfine states, to allow time to be non arbitrary and still a useful size.
Zorcron@lemmy.zip 15 hours ago
The round number would still be arbitrary, no? It’s roundness would be based on the base 10 counting system, which is also arbitrary.
atomicorange@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Not arbitrary. Base 10 because we usually have 10 fingers and those are useful for learning counting. If you have to choose a base, 10 is a good option for humans.
kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 12 hours ago
That’s still an arbitrary number to pick, and the choice of cesium oscillation seems pretty arbitrary in the grand scheme of things.