[amsat-bb] Re: Was: Arecibo, now confusing math

[tosca005@umn.edu]

On Apr 23 2010, Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:

>Perhaps we should stick to the unambiguous exponential/scientific notation.
>Today's date is  2.01E3:4E0:2.3E1
>
>On 23-Apr-10 11:50, Andrew Glasbrenner wrote:
>>
>> If you really want to bang your head against the wall at how man can't 
>> agree on anything, take a look at the concept of long and short scales: 

Unambiguous?

In many parts of the world, today's date would not be
  2.01E3/4E0/2.3E1 but rather would be
  4E0/2.3E1/2.01E3.2 or
  2.3E1/4E0/2.01E3.2 or
  2.01E3/2.3E1/4E0

Of course, April 23, 2010 seems clearer than either:
  2010/4/23 or
  2010/23/4 or
  23/4/2010 or
  4/23/2010 ...

(IMHO, 2010/23/04 makes most sense, since simple alphabetic sorting of such 
dates also comes out in chronological order, with the most significant 
digits referring to the biggest chunks - years - and the leas significant 
digits referring to the smallest chunks - days - but the leading zeros are 
also critical because you don't want October [10] sorting before March [3] 
and so it goes!)

Face it, the human race can't agree on anything, except to disagree.
73 de W0JT