Swatch Internet Time

Swatch Internet Time (or beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 and marketed by the Swatch corporation as an alternative, decimal measure of time. One of the goals was to simplify the way people in different time zones communicate about time, mostly by eliminating time zones altogether.

Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided up into 1000 parts called ".beats". Each .beat lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1000 after midnight. So, @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight representing 248/1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes.

There are no time zones in Internet Time; instead, the new time scale of Biel Mean Time (BMT) is used, based on Swatch's headquarters in Biel, Switzerland and equivalent to Central European Time, West Africa Time, and UTC+1. Unlike civil time in most European countries, Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time.

Read more about Swatch Internet Time:  History

Famous quotes containing the word time:

    It is a truer truth, it is better and fairer news, and no time will ever shame it, or prove it false.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)