Image by epSos.de via Flickr

Today, we’re going to talk about time.  Not time in the metaphysical sense, but the measurement of time.  In most of the modern world, we use a number of common units of duration such as seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years.  Most of us have an intuitive feel for these units and are comfortable using them everyday to do things like setting alarm clocks, booking flights, paying for parking, remembering birth days etc.  We even think of the system as a reasonably logical one – 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a days 365 days a year etc.  Here, we shall take a look at how these intuitive models ignore some of the more bizarre aspects of time keeping.  If not understood correctly, these mistakes creep into unexpected places, affecting everything from software systems, medical and aeronautical system to financial and legal frameworks.

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