Hexadecimal Clocks

And you thought “Metric Time” from the Simpsons was just a joke…

For my fellow mathematics buffs out there, several hexadecimal clocks exist. A few just take the existing date and time numbers and convert them into hexadecimal notation, but there are some that have a radically different, base-sixteen way of measuring time. One of them shows time as a hexadecimal fraction (between 0 and 1) expressing how much time of the day has passed, as the advantage is it can be infinitely precise, with as many digits as desired.

To convert between hexseconds and hexminutes, just switch the digit. 3C.2^16 hexseconds equals 3.C2^16 hexminutes for instance. To convert between them, just use this formula:

1 hour = 0.667^10 (0.AAB^16) hexhours

So 1 hexhour is around 1 hour and thirty minutes.

Here's a link to a site that has a hexadecimal clock program.

Here's another link to a site with a true binary clock that doesn't use the 24/60/60 division.

This is almost as interesting as the "hexidecimal dollar" I once got at a mathematics convention, one listed as worth $2.56!