We've all heard of a New York minute, but what about a Mars second?
I ask because at Desdmona's FishTank someone mentioned the recent landing of a spaceship on Mars, and someone else remarked:
And now NASA has flown its helicopter - "a Wright Brothers moment" on another planet. NASA's flight lasted 39.1 seconds - as long as the Wright Brother's first three flights combined.
So I asked if a Mars second was the same as an earth second.
I got this reply:
No. It was 1/86400 of the solar day, but apparently that kept changing, so the powers that be adopted the following:
The second is defined as being equal to the time duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the fundamental unperturbed ground-state of the caesium-133 atom.
I suppose that's clear enough. But is there casesium on Mars. And if not, does time stand still there?
In any event, I think we could use a more practical definition of a second. For instance: the time it takes Winnie, down at Red's, to deflect a conventioneer's straying hand from her scantily clad ass.
Can we have some other definitions?