this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
926 points (99.2% liked)

xkcd

8588 readers
235 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

https://xkcd.com/2867

Alt text:

It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nybble41@programming.dev 6 points 9 months ago

Good point. You'd need at least 215 bits to represent all measurably distinct times (in multiples of the Planck time, approximately 10^-43 seconds) out to the projected heat death of the universe at 100 trillion (10^14) years. That should be sufficient for even the most detailed and lengthy simulation.