What time and calander system will we use in the future?

Question

For example, let's say we make contact with another race from another planet and can be peaceful with them and travel to their planet, and they travel to ours. Would we adopt a new time scale that would work for both planets? Or what if we colonized another planet? Obviously it would most likely not have the same hours in a day or same days in a year, so would we create a new system of keeping time so that people on both worlds could say "What time is it?" and the other could say "6 glorgs past Fluble" and it would be understood immediately what time it was?

Answer 1

What a fascinating question!

Right now, during Martian exploration by unmanned probes, dual systems are in use: our earth-based conventional system, and one that counts "sols," a sol being equal to a Martian day. Since a "sol" is more than 39 minutes longer than an earth day, the scientists working with the probe must learn to live with Mars' schedule, which in a week migrates over 4 1/2 earth hours later into the day according to our earth clocks.

My guess is that when astronauts travel to Mars, they will quickly have to adopt the "sol" rather than simply continue using the earth clock. It follows that Mars people will, for use on Mars, also apply a calendar that counts Martian "sols."

A Martian calendar would have 668 "sols," with a leap day added every other year. One suggestion, called the "Darian calendar," would have 24 months with, of course, four seasons. Each of the four seasons features 6 months, five of 28 "sols" and the sixth with 27. The months of 28 would each have four 7-day weeks. To keep the weeks straight, the final week in the sixth month of each season would have only six "sols," so the day after the Martian Friday in each sixth month would jump to Sunday.

Mars people would likely continue to correspond with earth in Gregorian days and years, but to use an earth-based calendar would become hopelessly confusing for people living on Mars for the longer term.

Likewise with a calendar of "star dates" like they had on Star Trek, and which one writer hinted at. "Star dates" may work fine for a space ship, but such a system would almost certainly not gain public acceptance on earth (any more than the so-called "World Clock," that got its 15-minutes-of-fame a few years ago near the dawn of the internet -- time zones are here to stay), and would bear no reality for the Mars person waking up in the Martian morning and getting ready to start his "sol."

There is an interesting Wikipedia article on this subject that I commend to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_on_Mars#Keeping_track_of_time_of_day

Answer 2

A time unit is always a period of a repeating happening.
So the new choice depends on what you meet.
Th

Answer 3

Probably a universally agreed time system.

Answer 4

When in Rome....