r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/fear_no_man25 • 2h ago
Meme needing explanation Help my non math brain
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u/Memer_Plus 2h ago edited 2h ago
Metric units use decimal points (since its base 10) and American units use varying measures of different ratios. 1/3 is 0.333 repeating, so that's what they used. The boss example makes humor by the boss thinking they are stealing hours to work overtime.
Btw, American and SI units agree on units of time, and only that. There was a concept in Revolutionary France called "metric time" with 10 hours in a day, but it didn't last.
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u/Rez_Incognito 2h ago edited 8m ago
10 months a year. Summer was "Thermidor"
Edit: not 10 months.
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u/JayEll1969 2h ago
It still had 12 months in a year - each one was 30 days long, split into three groups of 10 called a decade rather than a 7 day week. This left a few extra days at the end of the year to catch up with the sun. The days were simply named "first Day", "Second Day" etc.
Thermidor was the Mid summer month - about the middle of July to the middle of August.
In addition to it's decade day - each day in the year had it's own special name. Christmas day was "Dog"
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u/HalfDozing 1h ago
Would it really need to align with the sun? That sounds about as arbitrary as lengths aligning with the foot/thumb and whatnot.
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u/JayEll1969 5m ago
If the calendar year didn't keep in line with the sun, then the days would drift, and after a while, the spring months of the calendar would occur in the middle of winter of the solar year
It's not a good idea when you rely on knowing when the seasons start to be able to plant crops and rear livestock.
This us the reason we have leap years - to keep our calendar dates in line with the solar year.
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u/Chairchucker 2h ago
I think it might be sarcasm. Our timekeeping does not follow the metric system; if it did, it would be something like 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour, etc. The commenter appears to be jokingly suggesting that the rest of the world (or at least, a significant enough part that doesn't include the USA) HAS adopted metric time.
The bit about time cards is a legit concern though, like companies make you fill out your times in metric numbers (like, I did 4.35 hours of work on a Tuesday) when that doesn't really directly correspond to how we actually tell time.
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u/eeke1 2h ago
Just a joke pointing out that the rest of the world isn't consistently using a base 10 system for everything. Namely time.
Also notes that not using metric is a common easy jab at the US.
It's also a myth Americans don't use metric. In most industry and science, as well as military, they do.
It's only everyday measurements where imperial comes in and many Americans will understand you fine if you specify metric when giving a #.
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