Natural time is a fresh, elegant, and coherent way of measuring the movements of time here on the Earth.
This new time standard is based on common sense and the observation of natural cycles.
This repository contains the current specifications of natural time in the English language. You may find the first implementation of it written in Javascript here : github.com/sylvain441/natural-time-js
Play with natural time at https://naturaltime.app/
Current version of natural time specifications : v1.0
The natural time describes the position of the Sun in the sky as observed from a specific position on the Earth's surface (longitude).
"What is the time at your place?" is equivalent to: "Where is the sun at your longitude?".
- A natural day starts at the very middle of the night (current longitude)
- A natural day ends at the next mid-night (same longitude)
- A full day reprents ths sun spining
360°around the clock - Mid-night:
0° - Mid-day:
180° - Northern hemisphere clock spins
clockwise - Southern hemisphere clock spins
anticlockwise
There is no such concept as time zones with natural time. Time zones are replaced by time distances.
In natural time, space and time are expressed in the same unit. The time distance is an expression that represent simultaneously:
- The longitudinal distance between two points (A and B) on Earth's surface
- The time it takes for the sun to move from point A to point B
For illustration purposes, this table displays the same time at different locations (longitudes).
| Point A | NTZ | POINT B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| LONGITUDE | NT-30 | NT+0 | NT+40 |
| TIME | 90° | 120° | 160° |
The time distance between Point A and Point B is: -30° + 40° = 70°
"NT" stands for Natural Time.
Translating degrees from hours/minutes/seconds is quite straightforward. This table may give you some key insights to quickly do the math.
| Natural degrees | Artificial hours | Artificial minutes | Artificial seconds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 360° | 24h | - | - |
| 60° | 4h | - | - |
| 30° | 2h | - | - |
| 10° | - | 40 min | - |
| 5° | - | 20 min | - |
| 1° | - | 4 min | - |
| 0,1° | - | - | 24s |
| 0,01° | - | - | 2,4s |
Many ancient civilisations already used the elegant 13-month 28-days calendar.
1 moon = 28 days
13 moons = 364 days
The current specification of natural time does not suggest any names for each of the 13 moons. It's up to any one/group/culture/language to add a layer of wording on top of universal numbers.
The 28 days of each moon do not match precisely with the ~29.5 days of the astronomical new-moon/full-moon cycles
1 week = 7 days
4 weeks = 1 moon
52 weeks = 13 moons = 364 days
The current specification of natural time suggests that week days may be named according to the 7 colors of the rainbow.
Day 1: Red #d74d40
Day 2: Orange #eaa945
Day 3: Yellow #dfdd45
Day 4: Green #7fc663
Day 5: Blue #49a2f0
Day 6: Indigo #443cea
Day 7: Violet #8047eb
A year is either 365 or 366 days long
Calculating the position of the sun at both winter solstices is the only way to predict the year's duration (see below).
Rainbow days are the 365th (and the 366th if exists)
Rainbow days are considered "out of time". They do not belong to a specific moon or week. Those days are dedicated to the celebration of Life and Nature in all its forms.
The antimeridian (+180°E) is the fixed virtual line marking the gap between two natural days globally. Exact mid-night at the antimeridian marks the openning of a new natural day.
Natural years beginning is calculated from the winter solstice in northern hemisphere.
Globally:
GlobalYearStart at mid-night ('0°' or '00:00 UTC+12') at the antimeridian (+180°E) right after the northern winter solstice.
Locally:
LocaYearStart the next local mid-night ('0°') after GlobalYearStart.
If the time distance between your position and the antimeridian is known, the formula is straightforward:
LocaYearStart = GlobalYearStart + TimeDistanceFromAntimeridian
Year 1 beginning : 1356091200000 (UNIX Timestamp)
Natural time adopted December 21st, 2012 as the beginning of Year 1. It is an arbitrary date. Any other random solstice would have also been a perfect choice, but this one simply carries an interesting symbolic package. Wrongly advertized as the "end of the world", 2012 is more like the beginning of a new cycle of 5125 years.
Year 1 : dec 2012 to dec 2013
UTC : 2012-12-21 at 12:00
UTC+12 (antimeridan) : 2012-12-22 at 00:00
ISO: 2012-12-21T12:00:00.000Z
For the sake of mathematical smoothness, year 0 exists.
Year 0 : 2011/2012
Year -1 : 2010/2011 ...
Here is the method to translate artifical year to natural year:
Between january the 1st and LocalYearStart:
NaturalYear = GregorianYear - 2012
Between LocalYearStart and december the 31st:
NaturalYear = (GregorianYear + 1) - 2012
Full ISO format :
YYY)MM)DD SUN° NT(+/-)LONGITUDE
ex: 010)05)22 202°63 NT+5.2
Date:
YYY)MM)DD or YYY)RAINBOW(2)
ex: 010)05)22 (year 10, 5th moon, 22nd day of the moon)
- Year
YYYcomes before the moonMMfollowed by the dayDD. It ensures a coherent alphabetical/numeric order. - Years are expressed with 3+ digits to create a visual difference with the actual 4 digits of artificial years.
- Moons are expressed with 2 digits from
01to13 - Days are expressed with 2 digits from
01to28 - YYY)MM)DD are separated by the
")"sign - Rainbow days do not belong to a specific moon:
YYY)RAINBOWfor day #365 orYYY)RAINBOW+for day #366 (when exists)
Time:
SUN°DECIMALS
ex: 202°63 (or 113°9, 257°, 55°123456789, ...)
- Time is expressed with 3 digits in
°from000°to359° - Decimals are written in base 10 with infinite precision allowed
Longitude:
NT(+/-)LONGITUDE or NTZ
ex: NT+5.2 (or NT-68, NT+52.441888, ...)
NTstands for "Natural Time"NTZequalsNT+0(time at the meridian 0)- Longitude is expressed with as many decimals as the precision requires
With base 10 being the most used and adopted convention on Earth right now, adopting the decimal system sounded like an obvious choice.
A full circle can be graduated in an infinite number of ways. The widely adopted 360° convention is used for many reasons:
- No learning curve: most of humanity pictures instantly the shape of 180°, 90°, 60° angles
- It matches the latitude/longitude system
- There are a lot of dividers: 180, 120, 90, 72, 60, 45, 40, 36, 30, 24, 20, 18, 15, 12, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
For navigation purposes, the Earth has been graduated with 360 meridians going from +180°E to -180°W. Meridian 0° is located on the North/South line crossing the Greenwich Observatory.
We could have used another arbitrary place on Earth as the meridian of origin. However, using the Greenwich meridian allows smooth compatibility with the GPS system. Thus, we avoid unnecessary complexity or the need to print new maps.
Natural time utilize Mean Time (like UTC) to smoothen time variations
The Earth's rotation is not geometrically perfect, nor is its orbit around the Sun. Consequently, all days have different durations. UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) was designed to deal with this "problem" by calculating the mean time of all those variations. By using UTC, we don't reinvent the wheel. It also makes translations from artificial time much easier.
Natural time is open to contributions from free-thinking minds. Find your way through Github or email at: sylvain441@proton.me to get in touch.
Read full license (Creative Common Zero)
Natural time is completely free to use, play, transform, improve... It operates under the law of Love. Follow your heart, fork it, spoon it! There is no need to ask for permission to do anything with it.
Natural time is supposed to bring joy and ease to human life, not the opposite. What you make out of it is up to you and the assistance of life forces.
Natural time has been baking for a long time in a goat's mind while traveling around the world. Infinite gratitude to my beloved friends Uncle Skywalker and Ik: your precious insights into the Mayan universe were so inspiring.
It was a real pleasure to give birth of natural time during the spring/summer of 2022 in the peaceful French alps.
🌍 One love 🌎
🏔 🐐 🌞 🌈