24/8 ?

[reTrEaD]

When someone puts their own spin on a familiar phrase, it usually produces a smile on my face. Siruis XM's twist on 24/7 for their Beatles Channel was no exception.

I reckon most will get it right off the bat. For those who don't, here's a clue for you all:

SPOILER: Click to show

[newey]

here's a clue for you all:

You're smarter than the average walrus . . .

Of course, if we are still around (as a species, that is, not as individuals . . .) about 200 million years from now, we'll have to say "25/7". As ChrisK would likely have said: "Slowing is. . ."

Even today, the (solar) day is plus or minus a few miiliseconds from 24 hours, due to tidal effects from the Moon. Today, we were about 7 milliseconds long.

A "week" on the other hand is an entirely arbitrary, human-created, division of time having no cosmic meaning, and strictly religiously-derived- but now globally ubiquitous, whether one believes that "on the seventh day he rested" or not.

[reTrEaD]

Nov 10, 2019 14:45:11 GMT -5 newey said:

Of course, if we are still around (as a species, that is, not as individuals . . .) about 200 million years from now, we'll have to say "25/7". As ChrisK would likely have said: "Slowing is. . ."

Maybe? I guess that all depend on if we'll hold fast to the present definition of second, relative to the radiation emitted by the cesium-133 atom.

If we adjust that number, as necessary, to maintain a ratio of 1 : 86400 for earth rotation (day) to seconds, all will be well.

[newey]

But we don't do that- we just add a "leap second" as needed. After all, if we are going to be an extraterrestial species, we need a uniform second, and the cesium atom is as good a standard as any, at least for now.

[reTrEaD]

Nov 10, 2019 20:45:52 GMT -5 newey said:

But we don't do that- we just add a "leap second" as needed. After all, if we are going to be an extraterrestial species, we need a uniform second, and the cesium atom is as good a standard as any, at least for now.

The standard measurement of distance time is a parsec, not a second. That standard was established a long time ago ...



(... in a galaxy far far away)

[sumgai]

And at that, newey stopped short of replying that there are more than 86,400 seconds per 24 hours. Astronomically speaking, the Solar year contains 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. This works out to.... 452,926 seconds beyond the commonly accepted 365 days. Distributed amongst each day of the year, that adds about.... 1,244.3 seconds per day, which is something a bit over 20 minutes. Sadly, our time-keeping system can't adjust in those kinds of increments, so we do the leap day/leap year thing. Works well enough for most purposes.

The real debate, as opened by newey, is the question of whether we (the future us) will recognize that time has slowed down, compared to the 3rd millenium's standards. Unprovably at this time, cesium-133 may well indeed also "slow down", or suffer decay in natural order along with all else. Entropy and all that, doncha know.

Required Disclosure: As newey is a Stoner, I am a Timer.






sumgai

p.s. I saw the title and said to myself "Cool, a far-out time signature for a crazy beat". Fooled me.

[sumgai]

Nov 10, 2019 21:33:32 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

The standard measurement of distance time is a parsec, not a second.

In a manner of speaking, that's true. Before that Far, Far Away Galaxy caught up to us, we used to define a parsec thus:

A unit of distance used in astronomy, equal to about 3.26 light years (3.086 × 10¹³ kilometers). One parsec corresponds to the distance at which the mean radius of the earth's orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc.

Stepping into my Professor shoes, I'll gently remind one and all that distance is the third member of the triumvirate, namely Frequency, Time and Distance. They are all related - when one changes, so do the others.

Fascinating (to some of us, anyways).

sumgai

[reTrEaD]

Nov 10, 2019 21:42:36 GMT -5 sumgai said:

p.s. I saw the title and said to myself "Cool, a far-out time signature for a crazy beat". Fooled me.

Time signatures with odd prime numbers in the numerator seem kinda crazy to me. 24 ... not so much. It's divisible by 2, 3, 4, etc so it would naturally lend itself to switching between some common subdivisions.

[sumgai]

Nov 11, 2019 11:46:20 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

Nov 10, 2019 21:42:36 GMT -5 sumgai said:

p.s. I saw the title and said to myself "Cool, a far-out time signature for a crazy beat". Fooled me.

Time signatures with odd prime numbers in the numerator seem kinda crazy to me. 24 ... not so much. It's divisible by 2, 3, 4, etc so it would naturally lend itself to switching between some common subdivisions.

True, but then again, when we wish to use triplets in the main, we often set the time signature to 12/8 - that lets us do things like dotted eight notes and dotted rests that are more easily counted out.  Saying to yourself "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1...". makes it much easier to recall where the beat and any off-beat rests lay, compared to "1, and, uh, 2, and, uh, 3, and, uh, 4, and, uh, 1...".

There are other examples, but this kind of thing occurs more frequently in either Jazz or World Music, to be sure.  Dave Brubeck should come to mind about now, but Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and/or Miles Davis would also serve as examples of popularizing non-standard time signatures.

Disclosure: While I'm not an afficiando by any means, it should strike no one as strange that the Jazz section of my collection is by no means bereft of good stuff.  But I'm forced to admit that the greater majority of artists are either sax players or pianists.  Jimmy Bryant, Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Lee Ritenour, Charlie Christian, John McLaughlin, Grant Green, Robben Ford, Tash Wolf, and even Les Paul - they're all present (if not in complete discographies), but not too many other guitar players. 

Did I mention Johnny A. Smith?  Extra points if you can name why he is considered to be the artist who launched 10,000 rock bands, directly or otherwise.

sumgai

[newey]

it should strike no one as strange that the Jazz section of my collection is by no means bereft of good stuff. But I'm forced to admit that the greater majority of artists are either sax players or pianists. Jimmy Bryant, Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Lee Ritenour, Charlie Christian, John McLaughlin, Grant Green, Robben Ford, Tash Wolf, and even Les Paul - they're all present (if not in complete discographies), but not too many other guitar players.

That's quite a list of guitarists- if the list of sax players/pianists is longer than that, well, that's pretty impressive.

Before the age of stereo, my father had a "hi-Fi" system (mono of course) with a Knight amplifier that he had built from a kit. The fact that it worked amazed me no end, even as a child- my dad wasn't the "handy" type and had no electrical expertise whatsoever. He was an English teacher who became a school administrator. But building your own "hi-Fi" was a thing back then, there were any number of kits available, from Heathkit, Knight and others.

Growing up, it was Brubeck, Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, and Dinah Washington, in heavy rotation per my dad. Me. I thought it was all boring as hell, I was listening to the Animals, Cream, and the Blues guys, BB King, Lightnin' Hopkins, et. al.

Later, in college i the 1970's, I heard John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stanley Clark, Wes Montgomery, and others, and came at jazz "through the back door",in a way. I slowly began to appreciate that there were structures beyond that of the 3-minute pop song, or the 18-minute blues-rock jam where we take a break during the drum solo.

When I was 18, my dad was an idiot. When I was 30, I grudgingly admitted he might have a clue or two.

When I hit age 50, he was a flippin' genius.

[sumgai]

Nov 11, 2019 22:49:06 GMT -5 newey said:

When I was 18, my dad was an idiot. When I was 30, I grudgingly admitted he might have a clue or two.

When I hit age 50, he was a flippin' genius.

Nice rehash of the old adage

As I became older, my father became smarter.

Now I understand why people have kids - so they can become smarter as their kids grow older.

[gumbo]

Back to the original point of this thread...
...as everyone else has chosen to derail it...


I'm in a daze Most Daze of the Week....no matter how many of them are in it.

g-f-b


....so there.