2025-10-18

standards and units

about canonical physical, temporal, linguistic, and mathematical representations that reduce reasoning and conversion complexity. part of representational reasoning.

units and standards

temperature

fahrenheit (celsius °c), rankine (kelvin × 1.8)

liter

fluid ounce (30 ml), cup (250 ml), pint (500 ml), quart (1 l), gallon (us) (4 l), gallon (uk) (5 l), barrel (100 l)

gram

ounce (28 g), pound (0.5 kg), stone (6 kg), ton (1 mg), slug (14.5939 kg)

meter

inch (2.5 cm), foot (30 cm), yard (1 m), mile (1.6 km), nautical mile (2 km), astronomical unit (150 gm), light year (9 pm), parsec (31 pm), ångström (1×10⁻¹⁰ m)

second

minute (60 s), hour (100 s), foot per second (0.3048 m/s)

joule

kilocalorie (0.0042 mj), calorie (4.184 j), erg (1×10⁻⁷ j), foot-pound (1.4 j), foot-pound-force (1.3558 j), btu (1 kj)

newton

dyne (1×10⁻⁵ n), pound-force (4.448 n)

bit

octet (8 bits), megabyte (8×10⁶ bits), terabyte (8×10¹² bits), mebibit (1,048,576 bits), kibibyte (8192 bits)

pascal

psi (7 kpa), atm (100 kpa), mmhg (133 pa), inch of mercury (3.386 kpa), torr (133.322 pa), psig (6.895 kpa gauge), bar (100 kpa), atmosphere technical (98.0665 kpa)

watt

horsepower (750 w), btu per hour (0.293 w)

m²

acre (4000 m²), hectare (10,000 m²)

km/ks

km/h (0.278 km/ks), mph (0.45 km/ks), knot (0.5 km/ks)

time

minute (60 s), hour (3.6 ks), day (86.4 ks), week (604.8 ks), month (~2.592 megaseconds), year (~31.5 megaseconds)

misc

fahrenheit delta (kelvin), gallon per mile (l/100 km), ppi (points per inch)

principles

base conversions on si multiples (kilo-, mega-, giga-)
decimal approximations are sufficient for everyday use
nested units complicate dimensional analysis; convert to single-unit expressions

planck units

planck units are defined using only the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the reduced planck constant, and the boltzmann constant.

time systems

abolish daylight saving time: the switching causes psychosomatic distress and accidents, with no strong benefit. it does not "create" more time. most people would not voluntarily get up an hour earlier in summer, yet refusing the change is impractical since all timetables and schedules adjust as a whole.
use negative years instead of specifying bce. if someone writes 1996, we assume it means the common era. if someone writes year -1996, we assume it is before an era, and by analogy to positive years, it should be understood as part of the same timeline.
- including a year 0 simplifies arithmetic. astronomical year numbering with year 0 makes year differences direct and maps years bijectively to integers.
- negative_year = 1 - bce_year because bce counts from 1, astronomical counts from 0.
use only an epoch, seconds, and si units. example: 1757674897 = 1 gs, 757 Ms, 674 ks, 8 hs, 97 s.
lowercase-only si prefixes and units. example:

prefixes = %w[p n mi m c d da h k me g t pe e z y ro qu]
units = %w[m g s a k mol cd hz n pa j w c v f ohm wb t h lm lx bq gy sv kat rad sr]
combinations = prefixes.product(units).map { |pre, unit| pre + unit }
puts combinations.join ", "

language

share languages more widely instead of maintaining hundreds of small-area languages. language barriers reduce access to knowledge, weaken understanding, and limit mobility. learning a language to near-native fluency can take a decade; without it, communication is far from what natives achieve.
cultural separation example: the internet forms language bubbles. searching arabic text returns mostly arabic-only sites. popular platforms are replicated within each language group, reducing cross-cultural exchange and innovation.
fear of cultural loss is overstated; shared languages can coexist with local dialects.
risks: harmful memes might spread faster, but responses would also be more effective.
benefits: end of language barrier, fewer school subjects, better politics, no subtitles, improved collaboration, faster research, more efficient information diffusion.

specific proposals

develop logical, unambiguous languages; word synthesis is important (e.g., attempto controlled english, lojban)
reduce character sets, remove uppercase ("vanity casing"); any ambiguity can be avoided easily by other means
create scripts with visually more distinct characters for faster recognition; some latin letters may be unnecessary

mathematics notation

current mathematical notation is optimized for blackboards, with many opaque symbolic "paintings" that are hard to learn and not computer-friendly
use ascii-based notation
use non-serif fonts for clarity
use english variable names
prefer notation that is readable both by humans and machines