This may seem like a basic question but, why do all cultures agree on the same units of time, months, hours, seconds, years, while no society can decide on units like torque, pressure, heat and distance.  I understand our time scale is based off of the earth's orbit around the sun (year) and its rotation (day) but never understood why all people just accept this unit, especially when we will be a multi-planetary species.  Even metric has its issues with Gram-force centimeters vs Newton meters for torque.  Or perhaps pressure with Pascal, atmospheres, Torr, psi, inches of Mercury, Gram-force per square meter, etc.  

To the whole scientific community: please, please, just pick a single unit!

Edited April 7, 20187 yr by PappaLitto

We agreed on some units almost 150 years ago. (A few backward countries, like the US, have been slow to adopt) Widespread adoption is driven by commerce, though.

The science community officially uses SI units, but old habits are hard to break. 

(and time hasn't been based on the earth's rotation in 50 years)

 

There have been different ones historically.

Quote

Decimal time was used in China throughout most of its history alongside duodecimal time. The midnight-to-midnight day was divided both into 12 double hours (traditional Chinese: 時辰; simplified Chinese: 时辰; pinyin: shí chén) and also into 10 shi / 100 ke (Hanzi: 刻; Pinyin: kè) by the 1st millennium BC.[1][2] Other numbers of ke per day were used during three short periods: 120 ke from 5–3 BC, 96 ke from 507–544 CE, and 108 ke from 544–565. Several of the roughly 50 Chinese calendars also divided each ke into 100 fen, although others divided each ke into 60 fen. In 1280, the Shoushi (Season Granting) calendar further subdivided each fen into 100 miao, creating a complete decimal time system of 100 ke, 100 fen and 100 miao.[3] Chinese decimal time ceased to be used in 1645 when the Shixian (Constant Conformity) calendar, based on European astronomy and brought to China by the Jesuits, adopted 96 ke per day alongside 12 double hours, making each ke exactly one-quarter hour.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time#China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Time_measurement_systems

 

 

 

7 hours ago, PappaLitto said:

This may seem like a basic question but, why do all cultures agree on the same units of time, months, hours, seconds, years, while no society can decide on units like torque, pressure, heat and distance.  I understand our time scale is based off of the earth's orbit around the sun (year) and its rotation (day) but never understood why all people just accept this unit, especially when we will be a multi-planetary species.  Even metric has its issues with Gram-force centimeters vs Newton meters for torque.  Or perhaps pressure with Pascal, atmospheres, Torr, psi, inches of Mercury, Gram-force per square meter, etc.  

To the whole scientific community: please, please, just pick a single unit!

There are plenty of different calenders. There are even different times. Gps time is 18 s ahead,  because they don't do in lead seconds.

Also, non of gram-force, atmospheres, Torr, psi, inches of Mercury, Gram-force per square meter are SI units.