@sylvain441/natural-time v1.0.0

Natural Time

• Natural Time
• Specifications
• Javascript API
• Contribute
• License
• Aknowledgments

Time is an illusion, a very persistent one...

Artificial Time (gregorian calendar) is a bizarre way to keep track of the mouvements of time.

Natural Time is an agnostic (new paradigm friendly 😁) time standard based on common sense and the observation of the natural cycles.

NATURAL TIME
360° = 1 day
7 days = 1 heptad
4 heptads = 1 moon
1 moon = 28 days
13 moons = 364 days
1 year = 13 moons + day(s) out of time

Wherever on the Earth's surface, the Sun circles across the North/South line every day. The lowest and the highest sun's position in the sky mark the beginning and the middle of the local day.

Natural time uses the 360° circle convention in conjunction with the 360° longitude/latitude system to mary time and space in an elegant spacetime convention all over the planet. The elegant "13 moons of 28 days" are utilized to count the iteration of days during the year.

"Time is an illusion, but a persistent one..." Enjoy !

Why a new convention?
Why not ? The widely adopted artifical clock and gregorian calendar are uselessly complex, overpatched and out of logic. Its structural irregularities keep us out of sync with the natural cycles.

The time subject may feel subsidiary to a lot of us. Still, with a close investigation, one easily discovers how fundamental the role of artificial time is in maintaining our artificial world in great shape. Time has come to free Time from political interference and religious schemes.

Have fun playing with natural time 😉

How to use?

// From artificial date and longitude
let artificialDate = new Date("2022-05-05T15:55:56.111Z");
let longitude = 5.18;

// Calculate natural date
let naturalDate = new NaturalDate(artificialDate, longitude);

See full JS API here.

Specifications

Existing conventions

Base 10

Base 10 being the most used and adopted on Earth right now, adopting the decimal system sounded like an obvious choice.

360° circle

A full circle can be graduated in an infinite number of ways. We use the widely adopted 360° convention for many reasons:

• No learning curve: most of humanity pictures instantly the shape of 180°, 90°, 60° angles
• It matches the longitude/latitude 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

Longitude/latitude system

The meridian of origin of Natural Time is the antimeridian (+180°E)

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 place on Earth as the meridian of origin. However, using the antimeridian allows smooth compatibility with the GPS system. No need to print new maps or add useless calculations!

UTC & Mean Time

Natural time utilize Mean Time (like UTC) to smoothen time variations

The Earth's rotation is not geometrically perfect, nor 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. This way, tranpositions from artificial time are much easier.

Terminology & Definitions

Years, Moons, Heptads, Days

A "year" is called "year" (or "helix")
A "month" is called "moon"  
A "week" is called "heptad"  
A "day" is called "day" (or "kin")

Natural time only requires base 10 numbers to express date and time. However, every language/culture may optionally add some optionnal layers of words for concepts like the name of every moon or the name of every day of the heptad.

Time distance

Longitudinal distance between two positions on the Earth's surface. Expressed on a 360° scale like the longitude/latitude system.   

Time distance represents with the same value and the same unit:

• a geographical distance between two points ont Earth's surface
• a time difference between two moments

Space and time finally get married again!

Date format

Full natural date format (ISO):

YYY|MM|DD SUN° NT(+/-LONGITUDE)
ex: 010|05|22 244°16 NT(+5.2)

Short natural date format:

YYY|MM|DD
ex: 010|05|22
=> 22nd day of the 5th moon, year 10

Time format

SUN°DECIMALS
ex: 244°16
=> The Sun is at 244.16° in the sky

Longitude format

NT(+/-LONGITUDE)
ex: NT(+5.2)
=> At the longitude +5.2W
"NT" stands for "Natural Time"

Year's beginning

The solar system's astronomical events like solstices are good anchors to define the start and end of a year.

Globally:

GlobalYearStart at mid-night ('0°' or '00:00 UTC+12' or '12:00 UTC') at the antimeridian (+180°E) right after the northern winter solstice.

Locally:

LocalYearStart the next local mid-night ('0°') after GlobalYearStart.

If you know the time distance between your position and the antimeridian, the formula is straightforward:

LocalYearStart = GlobalYearStart + TimeDistanceFromAntimeridian

Year's duration

A natural year is either 365 or 366 days long

Depending on the time when solstices happen, the length of a year may vary between 365 and 366 days.
Calculating the difference in positions of the sun at both winter solstices is the only way to predict the year's duration.

First Natural Year: 2012/2013

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  
UNIX: 1356091200000  

Natural Time is designed to help humanity embody a little further the new Earth's paradigm. Incorrectly advertised as the "end of the world", December 21st 2012 was more like the closing of one cycle and the beginning of a new one. During this famous winter solstice, a 5126 years long Mayan cycle (called "bʼakʼtun") ended. The Mayan long count increased from 12.20.20.18.20 to 13.0.0.0.0 😎.

Natural time adopted this (arbitrary) date as the beginning of Year 1. Any other random solstice would have also been a perfect choice. This one is just preferred for the interesting symbolic package it carries.

Year 0: 2011/2012

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

13 Moons

28 days = 1 moon
13 moons = 364 days 😎
The year always starts on the first day of the first moon

13 moons of 28 days plus 1 extra day equals a full year. Beautiful, isn't it? Nothing really new... A lot of ancient (and more recent) calendars were using the 13-month calendar.

Please note that the 28 days of each moon do not match precisely with the 29.53 days of the astronomical new-moon/full-moon cycles.

"Day Out Of Time" or "Rainbow Day"

DOOT: Day Out Of Time
The 365th day of the year is considered a DOOT
The 366th day (when existing) is also a DOOT

Days Out Of Time do not belong to a specific moon or heptad. Those days are dedicated to the celebration of Life and Nature in all its forms. Time just stops during those days and waits for the next new year to start again.

It's a suggested practice to make watches/clocks stop during DOOT, thus inviting anyone to trust their inner intuitive clock.

Heptad of 7 days

7 days = 1 heptad
4 heptads = 1 moon
52 heptads = 13 moons = 364 days
The year always starts on day 1 of the first heptad

A heptad is composed of 7 days. There are 4 heptads per moon and a total of 52 complete heptads every year.

A suggested terminology consist of naming the 7 days of the heptad by the 7 colors of the rainbow.

Day 1: Red #d74d40
Day 2: Orange #eaa945
Day 3: Yellow #f5f258
Day 4: Green #7fc663
Day 5: Blue #49a2f0
Day 6: Indigo #443cea
Day 7: Violet #8047eb

Another suggested terminology uses the 4 natural elements as the names of the 4 heptads of each moon:

Heptad 1: Earth
Heptad 2: Water
Heptad 3: Air
Heptad 4: Fire

NB: The fifth element is to be celebrated at every point of spacetime ;-)

Time: 360° clock

Time is expressed in degrees (°) with as many decimals as necessary (ex: "144°56789..."). It describes the position (azimuth) of the Sun in the sky as observed from a specific spot on the Earth's surface. There is a very close relationship between local time and the observer's longitude.

"What is the time?"
=> It's 113°

Equivalent to:

"Where is the sun?".  
=> The sun is at 113°

The day starts locally at mid-night and ends at the next local mid-night.

Day duration: 360°  
Mid-night: 0° (or 360°)  
Mid-day: 180°  

You may also calculate LocalTime from GlobalTime and the time distance from antimeridian:

LocalTime = GlobalTime + TimeDistanceFromAntimeridian

Time zone / Time distance / Time-lag

There is no such concept as time zones with Natural Time.  
Time zones are replaced by time distances 

Time is intimately linked with the longitudinal position on Earth. When one moves eastward or westward, one should adjust the watch needle with the same number of longitude meridians crossed while traveling.

Let's take an example:

• The Gizeh pyramide is situated at +031°E longitude
• The Palenque Temple in Mexico is located at -092°W longitude
• The time distance between Gizeh and Palenque (+31°) + (-92°) = -61°
• Gizeh local time is 161°
• Therefore Palenque local time is 161° + (-61°) = 100°

Depending on your precision requirements, you may use as many decimals as you want in your longitude/time calculations.

From artificial to natural time

Translating degrees from hours/minutes/seconds is quite straightforward. This table may give you some key insights to do the math in your head within a few seconds.

tic ........ tac ........ tic ........ tac
                   vs
tic ... tac ... tic ... tac ... tic ... tac

The closest equivalent of artificial seconds is 0.01° => 2,4s
Present time flows more slowly... It should makes us feel better 😁

36 "hours" of 40 minutes
         vs
24 hours of 60 minutes

We can end today the scourge of having "only" 24 hours in a day 😅.
36 hours a day feels like a lot more to enjoy life 😁!

Javascrip API

The original implementation of Natural Time is this one, written in Javascript.

If you know how to deal with typescript/typings/documentation this repo may appreciate your help.

Instalation

Install NPM package with terminal:

npm install natural-time

NaturalDate Class

The NaturalDate class allows you to transform artificial dates into natural dates.

import { NaturalDate } from 'natural-time/NaturalDate';

let artificialDate = new Date();
let longitude = 5.18;

let naturalDate = new NaturalDate(artificialDate, longitude);

console.log(naturalDate.dayOfYear); // prints: "202"

Variables

Once instanciated, all those variables are directly accessible through the NaturalDate object:

date; // Artificial gregorian date
longitude; // Longitude (between -180° to +180°)

year; // Current year (year 1: 2012/2013)
moon; // Current moon (between 1 and 14)

heptad; // Current heptad (between 1 and 53)
heptadOfMoon; // Current heptad of the moon (between 1 and 4)

day; // Number of days since END_OF_ARTIFICIAL_TIME
dayOfYear; // Current day of the year (between 0 and 366)
dayOfMoon; // Current day of the moon (between 1 and 28)
dayOfHeptad; // Current day of the heptad (between 1 and 7)

isDayOutOfTime; // True if current day is out of time

time; // Current time (between 0 and 359°999999)

yearStart; // Beginning of the year at the current longitude (UNIX timestamp)
yearDuration; // Numbers of days in the current year (between 365 and 366)
nadir; // Beginning of the day at the current longitude (UNIX timestamp)

Functions

naturalDate.toString() // "004|04|01 113°00 (NT+95)"
naturalDate.toDateString() // "004|04|01"
naturalDate.toTimeString() // "113°00"
naturalDate.toLongitudeString() // "(NT+95)"
naturalDate.toYearString() // "004"
naturalDate.toMoonString() // "04"
naturalDate.toDayOfMoonString() // "01"

More functions should be available soon to make the NaturalDate class API mimic the native javascript Date class. Your help is welcome for this to happen ;-)

NaturalDateContext functions

The NaturalDateContext contains utility functions to bring some astronomical context to natural date (ex: altitude of the sun, phase of the moon).

import { NaturalSunAltitude, NaturalSunEvents, NaturalMoonPosition, NaturalMoonEvents } from 'natural-time/NaturalDateContext';

let user = {
    latitude: 29.979164404393934, // Gizeh pyramide
    longitude: 31.13419446045115
}

let naturalDate = new NaturalDate(new Date(), user.longitude);

Sun Altitude

NaturalSunAltitude(naturalDate, user.latitude, user.longitude));

Returns

altitude: 31.779736404754367, 
highestAltitude: 62.32114911751647

Sun events (sunrise, sunset, nightStart ...)

    NaturalSunEvents(naturalDate, user.latitude, user.longitude));

Returns time-distance or false if no event

sunrise: 70.56708493448893,
sunset: 287.9105974344889,
nightStart: 306.43507660115563,
nightEnd: 52.13781826782227,
morningGoldenHour: 80.8551891011556,
eveningGoldenHour: 277.58920993448896

Moon position (phase, altitude, ...)

NaturalMoonPosition(naturalDate, user.latitude, user.longitude));

Returns

position: 526.0620760764069,
phase: 74.86175469141531,
altitude: 64.32391838504756,
highestAltitude: 69.53997976716451

Moon events (moonrise, moonset)

NaturalMoonEvents(naturalDate, user.latitude, user.longitude));

Returns time-distance or false if no event

moonrise: 139.14544743448894,
moonset: 10.624722434488932 

Roadmap

1. Test in real life
2. Add typescript compatibility
3. Make NaturalDate feel like the Javascript native Date Class by adding features like
   • getTime()
   • setMoon()
   • ...
4. Make NaturalTime available for other programing languages

Contribute

Natural time is open to contributions from free-thinking minds. Find your way through Github or contact me at: sylvain441@pm.me to get in touch.

License

Natural time is completely free to use, play, transform, improve... It operates under no specific licence other that of Life itself.

Natural time is supposed to enhance human's life, not the opposite. What you make out of it is strictly between you and the Life forces.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Don Cross, author of the Astronomy Library for calculating celestial body events. https://github.com/cosinekitty/astronomy

Natural time has been baking for a long time in a goat's mind while traveling around the world. Infinite gratefulness to you my beloved friends Ed and Ik, your precious insights on the Mayan world were inspiring.

It was a real pleasure to give birth of natural time during the spring of 2022 in the peaceful French alps.

With love...
🏔🐐🌞