Time
Topic: The Invention Corner
The Gregorian calendar is a variation of the Julian calendar. Both these calendars have been tweaked countless times, due partly to better measuring systems, and due partly to mistakes.* And the main purpose of the calendar is to measure time.

Time is measured in such a manner that tells agricultural technicians and implementing engineers** to know when they should plant, when they should harvest, and whether or not they should unload all their Burpee stock. Because of this, the Gregorian calendar is far too useful and necessary to dispense with completely. It should be kept in the form of an almanac, mainly so we'll have a handy reference with dates and numbers, instead of just sticking our head out the window.

But because it's based on an arbitrary system (how long it takes Earth to orbit Sol), it really can't be easily measured with precision. To get precision for that time period would take, literally, all year. Sure, it'd be worth the effort, but you wouldn't be able to verify it for another year, and what if the results don't match?

The fact days last more and less time during different seasons doesn't help, and Gods help you if you want to watch the passage of the sun if you live in Alaska. The earth rotates and we get days, and it orbits, giving us years. Without that simple morsel of information, the calendar system makes absolutely no sense. It's hard to count; it's not base 10. Instead, it uses multiples of 60, until you get to hours in a day, which becomes 24(ish). Then it becomes seven, but that's a dead end because days of the months are still counted by a base 10 system until you get to 31, 30, 29, or 28 (depending on the month or if it's a leap-year), at which point you have another dead end, and then you get to years, which are (suddenly and in defiance of all the other units of the calendar) counted by base 10, and it stays that way for the measure of centuries, millenium, and so on. This is, by the way, the "easy" calendar, meaning all the rest of them were rejected for common use because they were "too confusing."

Now, I've spoken about this before, but I didn't really have a good solution. I mentioned that beings of pure logic would reject such an asinine system, but I didn't say what they'd use instead. Well, I realized that the Metric system was a simple replacement to all the English measurements in common use. Couldn't that be applied to time as well?

I introduce to you the "chronon." One chronon is defined as the time it takes to bring a cubic millimeter (one milliliter) of pure water from zero degrees Celcius (freezing point at sea level) to one hundred degrees Celcius (boiling point at sea level), using a constantly applied heat of one hundred degrees celcius. I don't know how long that would take, but it's a constant, because the boiling point of pure water at sea level doesn't change. And because it's a constant, that means the time it takes is a constant.

And it can easily be broken down or multiplied in the same base 10 manner as all the other Metric system measurements. Decichronons, centichronons, decachronons... it all works out just as simply. It is independant of the Earthly seasons, so it can easily be used in space or places deep underground (or under the ocean) without confusion. As I mentioned earlier, agricultural occupations would still need an almanac, but the conversion rate would be simple, because the chronon is a constant. Hells, we could even go all the way back to the beginning of time itself, converting it all to metric measurements. The Gregorian calendar would go the way of so many other inventions based on Roman innovation; used occasionally, nostalgically, wistfully, and rarely effectively. It would be placed in the Old Dusty Attic of Roman Ideas along with Roman numerals, Latin, vomitoriums, and togas.

But we owe a lot to that system. So even if we do replace it, we'll remember it fondly, and possibly even commemorate the metric date of its passing. We'll remember it fondly, as we observe a few millichronons of silence, once every kilochronon.

See? It's just that easy to start using it.

*For example, in 9 BC, it was found that the priests in charge of computing the calendar had been adding leap years every three years instead of the four decreed by Caesar. As a result of this error, no more leap years were added until 8 AD, inspiring countless people to ask "What's the Goddamn point?"
**Pronounced "farmers"