A look at Zuran Time

[Syntic]

I was recently looking at the Zuran time system, because when I take a mission that says I have 3 Stazura to finish I want to know how much time I really have.

However looking at the time system I realised it seemed a bit odd, not just by human standards by by mathematical standards.

What I mean by this is that time on earth could be divided in any number of ways. Sure 1 earth year is the time it takes for earth to go around the sun, and 1 earth day is the time it takes for earth to rotate around one time. But things like Months? Weeks? Hours? Minutes? Seconds?

These could have been divided up in any number of ways. One earth day could be 7 hours for what it's worth, and there might be 4 minutes in one of those hours. Further it could be said that there are 1000 seconds in one minute. What that time system means I don't know, but it could exist if we wanted it to, but the thing is it would not likely develop in a culture naturally because mathematically it doesn't make sense.

Before we look at the math of how zt is done lets take a look at the math for how Earth time is done.

1 second is about the time it takes to say "One thousand one" of course this is just an estimate. To understand what a second is we need to start at the highest unit of time measure that our solar system has. (Yes I know we have Centuries and such but the solar system has no way of measuring that naturally)

1 year = the time it takes earth to orbit the sun

This seems like a fairly natural unit of time and in the X universe this is acknowledged to be used by all the races. Of course their 1 year is their home planet around their home sun.

1 day = the time it takes the earth revolve

This again is a natural way of measuring time and in the X universe the various races use their own planets to come up with their own day.

So lets look at the time units between years and days

Seasons, Months, Weeks

There are 4 seasons in one earth year, and these developed because of planting times and the weather. I'm no farmer IRL but this is the way I under stand it: Plant in the spring, tend during the summer, harvest during the fall, and make it through the winter.

The closest zt has to a season is the Mazura, and instead of 4 they have 8. This makes sense for a race of traders:

Winter: No trading right now because the weather is to harsh.
Post-Winter Trading: Now that the weather has calmed trading is needed to restock used up supplies.
Spring: Get crops planted and trade with those people that come to you.
Post-Spring Trading: Now that crops are planted and things are under control from winter, go get the new supplies you need that you couldn't get during Post-Winter Trading.
Summer: With the heat getting higher tend to the crops to make sure they don't die out on you.
Post-Summer Trading: Now that the heat has lowered and it's not so dangerous that you'll loose your crops time for more trading.
Fall: Get those crops harvested
Post-Fall Trading: Now that you have a whole lot of crops and some money from the other three trading seasons this is the time to try to make as much profits as you can while stocking up on things you'll need to make it past winter.

On earth the seasons got divided up into 3 months each, and as time has gone on seasons have become less important to people. As fewer people are involved in farming, seasons have become less important, and for longer measurements of time months has become the way of thinking.

Looking at zt, we see that a Wazura is the unit of time we might think closest to a month, but in reality it is closer to a week. That's all right though. Nothing says that the natural progression of things would cause a month like period of time to be formed. Espesually not for as many Mazura as there are in one Jazura. We'll get to the math on the Wazura in a moment.

This though gets us down to the Earth day. In zt the thing closest to a day is the Tazura.

So to make this easier to understand...
Tazura = Day
Wazura = Week
Mazura = Month/Season
(That is not to say that they are the same, but equivalent too)

There are 7 Tazura in one Wazura, and 7 Wazura in one Mazura
There are 7 Days in one Week, and 13 weeks in one Season

But here's the problem, why are there 7 days in one week? Well originally the week wasn't an important unit of time measurement. The month was.

12 months in one year and about 30 days in one month. Why though this division? Would you believe that the number 12 is used not because of the zodiac but because math heads liked the number 12? I'm serious, the zodiac are constellations in the sky. Like connect the dots with the stars. Why though 12 constellations, and not 13 or 87 or what ever? It's because someone liked the number 12. And I assure you that it was a math head that liked the number twelve.

I'll not get into much math here because I know that a lot of people are scared of math, but 12 can handle these numbers being divided into it... 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12. Notice in our little string of numbers from 1 to 6 that was missed was five. I'm sure that they would have loved to work in the number five so they would have had all six numbers. Well lets see what happens when we times 12 by 5... we get 60. We'll get back to 60 in a "second" or perhaps even a "minute" but I'm sure that it looks familiar already.

So why 12 months instead of 60 months in the year? Well if you've read anything about why zt is used in the X universe instead of Earth time, it's purely political. That is much the same reason why we have 12 months and not 60 months in the year, for political reasons.

And now we get down to hours. Why 24 hours in the day? Again a political reason. Could have been exactly 20 if people wanted. But lets look at how the day is divided, it's got AM and PM and each period of time has 12 hours in it. Hum... 12 months and 12 hours per day half. Concidence? Not really, again it was a political reason. Some math head was able to explain why 12 was such a cool number and why it was so important that we have time units that could be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

I won't even go into seconds and minutes at this point because it should be apparent why we have them the way we do.

So now lets look at some of the interesting numbers of zt time.

As a Sezura is much like a second and a Mizura is much like a minute... why then are there 96 Sezuras in a Mizura. What fascination might the Teladi have with the number 96.

Lets look at it first from the stand point that it might be divided by some interesting numbers.

96 can be divided by: 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 24 32 and 48

So this seems sort of interesting. 96 can be divided by all the numbers 1 to 8 except for 5 and 7.

We know that the Teladi don't have a problem with the number 7 inherently because it shows up three times on it's own with larger time scales. That's a good reason why 7 wouldn't show up now because it actually shows up later, thus the 7 is already taken care of in a larger time scale.

But what of 5, why doesn't it show up in any of the time units? Could it be that the Teladi just don't like the number? It's very possible actually. If you notice the numbers that can go into 96 only one odd number actually does. It's possible that the Teladi just don't like odd numbers, but through in the number three as a courtesy.

How long though would a Sezura be if they didn't put in the three? Well there would be 32 Sezura in one Mizura and a Sezura would last for about 5.1 earth seconds. For unit of time that can be counted, a Sezura that did not have the three would last to long.

So what does this all boil down to? It means that the Teladi time system isn't some idle time system that inherently makes sense to any race or is expesually good for trading. It means that the Teladi time system is as influenced by the Math Heads of the Teladi race as our time system is influenced by the Math Heads of the Human race. All politics really. If someone says they like the number 5 or dislikes the number 13 and that person is important enough, then those numbers take upon meaning in that society.

Humans tend to like the number 5 because that's the number of fingers we have on one hand. With that in mind I have to wonder why the Teladi apparently dislike the number. Do they have 6 fingered hands or something? Whatever the reason for the dislike even if they don't acknowledge that they dislike it, it is clear they have a dislike of it, because at every time unit they avoid using 5.

One could say that I'm just looking to much into things, and also point out that they never use the number 17 with any measurement of time. However I simply point out that units of time are simply divided into groups that are the most versatile for the situation that they are used in.

For instance on earth we might say "Lets meet in an hour at the park" because an hour of time is a good period of time to get things taken care of before going to the park. Likewise I might say "I'll give you until the count of ten until I open fire" and most people would understand you are giving them about 10 seconds to make up their mind.

With that in mind, it's interesting to consider that the Teladi actually have a slower relaxed response time than Humans. I say relaxed response time because we know that for a Human when adrenaline gets pumping that response time actually improves. So seeing that their smallest time unit is longer than our smallest time unit, in general they when relaxed tend to do things slower than humans.

Of course they might have something like adrenaline, that when they get focused they react faster than a human. 1 Sezura might be the time it takes a Teladi that has locked in a good deal to get out his credits and make the purchase. Humans on the other hand might fumble with a wallet for a good 15 seconds while they get out their credit card.

It's possible that the reason that the smallest time unit for the Teladi is so long compared to our second is that they might consider the length of time it takes to make a transaction the smallest time that has any meaning. Anything smaller is likely measuring something that they don't have much interest in anyways.

Consider humans and the things you can do in less than a second, and consider how many of those things are things that you actually consider important. From the time you sit down at your computer to the time you press the power button might be less than a second, but it's not something that you likely consider important enough to try to measure the time of. Likewise for the Teladi the smallest time that they are likely interested in is the time it takes to transfer money from one person to another. The quicker that gets done the quicker they can go onto other deals.

[alt3rn1ty]

Dude you have had way too much coffee.

[ADNoland]

that was certainly.... interesting....

[Mazer]

holy shin splints dude, that is crazy talk.

haha i think i get it though

[X-Tie]

==> That's what happens when you play X too much, you start pondering on philosophical questions about why this why that . The search for knowledge, my friend heehee.
Anyhow, I gotta prepare some dinner, pretty hungry right now, haven't read the whole post yet but I will later on

I must say though, from what I've read so far, you sure you didn't take anything? overdose of any substance that could affect your mind? couldn't sleep because of the coffee so you decided to write this?

[mayan]

Why though this division? Would you believe that the number 12 is used not because of the zodiac but because math heads liked the number 12?

I think you will find that this is because the months are based on the lunar cycles. Hence even the name "month" is a derivation from "moon".

There are 12 lunar cycles in each year, each cycle varying between 29 and 30 days. This makes a total of 354 days.

Obviously we now know that the solar year is 365.25 days and many cultures have added months every so often to bring back their lunar years in sync with the solar year.

After many attempts at regularising the calendar to define a year, we are now comfortable with the Gregorian calendar decreed by Pope Gregory XIII way back in 1582.

The 12 signs of the zodiac have been derived again because there are 12 lunar cycles in each year.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your musings... please do continue

[Syntic]

I had forgotten about the lunar cycle, but I do recall having heard that before. That though just builds up with the politics though. I've heard (and please don't quote me on this because I couldn't name my source) that the Romian Empire changed the number and names of months in a year a couple of times, not to mention the days in a month.

But imagine any political debate on the year...

Side A: I say we stay with the old druidic way of counting the number of moons in a year. 12 moons works nicely.

Side B: I don't know, do we really need 12 moons? Besides we are trying to get rid of the Druidic ways. I say we ditch the whole Moon thing and say 10 months in a year.

Side A: Well I agree that we are trying to get rid of the Druids so calling our unit months instead of moons sounds like a good idea. But over all 12 is a better number than 10.

Side B: Why is that? I have 10 fingers, not 12. 12 is meaningless if we discount the moon thing.

Side A: Ah yes, but we have four seasons, you can't deny that, and if we use 12 then that means we can have an equal number of months each season. Not only that but if you use your thumb to point at the finger segments of the other four fingers you'll find you have 12 segments. A good accountant doesn't count with his fingers from 1 to 10, he counts his finger segments 1 to 12 using the thumb to keep track.

Leader Being Convinced: Wait you say that using 12 instead of 10 would be better for money?

Side A: Yes

Leader Now Conviced: I like money, we go with 12 and not 10

[Hawk_308]

Dont this belong in that thread "you know youve been playing X3 too long when..." but it does answer some stuff for me on the time system

[pjknibbs]

Can I just point out that the Zuran time system you see in the game doesn't actually use the proper conversion factors? It directly translates as sezura = second, mizura = minute and stazura = hour, so if the game gives you a task taking 3 stazuras, that's 3 hours. It was presumably done this way so you DIDN'T have to manually convert from one to the other when trying to figure out how long you had to do something! (If the Zuran system were used in-game, you'd expect the in-game clock to also use Zuran, which it doesn't).

[Syntic]

I never noticed that I guess... But I still had to wonder about the numbers used in their system of time telling.

I'll admit I'm a math head, when I see a chart of units I'm one of those people that wonder about the units.

[Syndrome]

Can I just point out that the Zuran time system you see in the game doesn't actually use the proper conversion factors? It directly translates as sezura = second, mizura = minute and stazura = hour, so if the game gives you a task taking 3 stazuras, that's 3 hours. It was presumably done this way so you DIDN'T have to manually convert from one to the other when trying to figure out how long you had to do something! (If the Zuran system were used in-game, you'd expect the in-game clock to also use Zuran, which it doesn't).

And that is why in the X3 plot they used the 'normal' Argon/Earth time instead of Zuran time.

[XanII]

This mail should be appended to the "you have played too much X3 when..." thread as it is. Who needs more proof than this.

[zazie]

Time is relative, was we know ... @pjknibbs: you are right - and you are wrong. Because the Ingame-timing is in real seconds and minutes it makes important difference to Players gaming experience.

Example: for a Taxi Mission you have 5 mizuras (=5 minutes). It is counted more or less precisely from the moment the mission appears on the BBS and is terminated after the 5 minutes.
INGAME you don't have 5 minutes because the loading times are counted for the time-counter but not for your ingame-character.
You can measure the times inflight - it will be less than the time given.

@ Syntic: nice reading, lot of intellectual work

[Syntic]

This mail should be appended to the "you have played too much X3 when..." thread as it is. Who needs more proof than this.

Would you believe that I've only been playing about a week recently? I mean I did used to play but it didn't run well with my old equipment so I never really got into the game. Actually the shortness of me playing accounts for why I wrote this, as if I had been playing longer I'm sure I would have noticed that a Mizura in game time equals a Minute in real life despite the manual saying that it's 2.72 minutes.

I do see your point though that it might be worthy of a thread of playing to much X2 or X3 or just to much X in general, but I would say the entry would look something like this "You know you've been playing to much X when you start writing papers about the various races' customs"

I wouldn't actually move the actical it's self into the other thread because they differ in their premiss quite a bit.

In one thread you are saying if you do something you've played to much X, in this thread I've actually done it

[Comms_Lad]

I had forgotten about the lunar cycle, but I do recall having heard that before. That though just builds up with the politics though. I've heard (and please don't quote me on this because I couldn't name my source) that the Romian Empire changed the number and names of months in a year a couple of times, not to mention the days in a month.

Correct Roman Emporers Julius and Augustus Ceaser had months named after them (ill let you guess which ones lol)

If you want to find more about calendars, timings and seasons you have to go further back than the romans try the original math geeks Aztecs and Mayans.

Nice bit of research there made a good read and I disagree about you having to much coffee, no amount of coffee could of come up with that trust me lol ....



....Now weed is a different matter???

[Geek]

Example: for a Taxi Mission you have 5 mizuras (=5 minutes). It is counted more or less precisely from the moment the mission appears on the BBS and is terminated after the 5 minutes.
INGAME you don't have 5 minutes because the loading times are counted for the time-counter but not for your ingame-character.

Err, no. The counter begins when you accept the mission. Just find a mission with a short time (ie 3 minutes). Wait a bit (3 minutes) before accepting. If you were right you could not do the mission. I have tried and done it.

[zazie]

OK, you are right, I was not precise enough: Instead of "appears on the BBS" I should have written: "appears in the Message Log".
I mixed up; seemed I thought about "personal BBS".
But the point is (as you have written too): time counts from accepting the mission and NOT from departing at the station.

[Syntic]

Sadly I can't stand the taste of coffee (that's it's own non related topic there)

And I've only tried weed once. I didn't understand what the big deal it was after that and haven't bothered sense.

Nope me looking at something that isn't important and being able to see it as if it was the most important thing in the world (at least four half an hour while I write up something about it) is my own natural self.

Something I realized this morning while reading the news paper though in relation to time and the game...

We know that even though they call it a Mizura in the game that the time that actually passes is only one real minute.

Also we know that a Mizura equates to 2.72 minutes

This means that 1 real minute = 2.72 game minutes. Now this might not seem like anything to important, I mean I'm sure there are empire building games where a game year passes in about an hour. But in this space game? It actually does mean something when you take into account that device you can get for your ship that speeds up a voyage... you know the Seta.

The Seta doesn't make the ship any faster as you may know, instead at default settings it makes 1 real minute = 2.72 game minutes x6 or = 16.32 minutes.

We all see the Seta as speeding up our voyages, but we should be able to easily tell that it's not speeding anything up at all. What it's actually doing is slowing down the main character. So here we have this device that slows down the player by a factor of 6 (or 10 if you crank it up in your options menu). But we see that the player is already slowed down by a factor of 2.72.

Why is the player slowed down by a factor of 2.72? We can see that this fact is true, but it's not so easy to see why. One might suppose that because the back story is that you had been a bit of a pirate before the start of the game that drugs might have had something to do with it.

But consider this, when the game goes into "animation" mode, or even when someone sends you a Com message... time is still passing yet you understand their words perfectly. This may not seem like an important fact, but consider this if you have a DVD player and you fast forward a movie just one notch you can often still hear the sounds just in fast forward. (That's not on all DVD players so it may not work for you if you try.)

So if the main character really was slowed down by a factor of 2.72 then everything the main character heard said would likely sound like the chipmunks Elvin, Simon, and Theodore. Yet they don't.

So this tells us that not only is the player slowed down by a factor of 2.72, but the entire human race has been slowed down by a factor of 2.72. I find it hard to believe that every human you meet in the game has taken drugs that make them slower... so the only logical conclusion is that Humans have become slower in the future.

X2 clearly indicates that Humans have de-evolved from the point we are right now. Sure it also says that Humans have all sorts of cool tech toys, but their brains have become slower. Is this a hidden political comment from the programmers at Egosoft about the dangers of becoming over reliant upon technology? The programmers could have just as easily said a Minute instead of a Mizura, but they didn't... instead they slowed down the reaction time of the entire human race by a factor of 2.72...

[Taku]

The part i read before my brain exploded ( Math scares me) Scared me, What possesed you to come up with what you did and go so in depth with it, the way i look at it was pretty much the way you said it, but uh, i did it without all the math, Heres my Method

Mazura= Starts with M= Month
Wozura= Starts with W= Week
Tazura= Cant be Week or month= Day

So you see, Make it easier on yourself, DONT DO THE MATH! It'll kill ya, Anyways well, thank you for enlightining me...

We all see the Seta as speeding up our voyages, but we should be able to easily tell that it's not speeding anything up at all. What it's actually doing is slowing down the main character. So here we have this device that slows down the player by a factor of 6 (or 10 if you crank it up in your options menu). But we see that the player is already slowed down by a factor of 2.72.

Actually, i thought Seta sped the passage of time, i mean after all it stands for Singularity Engine TIME ACCELERATOR, So wouldn't it speed the flow of time, which is why everything else in the universe speeds up as well... Even though the Singularity parts not really there...lol

[Geek]

About the words for time, read this http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=177281