Global Rotation Time
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Loading time…The timeline runs monotonically; only the display format changes at the end of a Rotation.
Transit Today
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Divisions start at the global 00:00 meridian.
Sunrise
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Sunset
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Daylight Length
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Countdown Starts
15:88:00
Annual Reference Meridians
Select an orbital year within ±30 years of the current year.
Y---- · --°
Civil and Metric Time Map
Select an interval on today’s timeline
Enter two points and compare the same moments in familiar civil time and biological metric time.
Enter hours and minutes
Legacy Civil Time
Selected Points
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URTF Time
Selected Interval---- URTF
Metric Seconds Since J2000.0 TT
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Epoch: 2000-01-01 12:00:00 TT.
Cesium Oscillations Since J2000.0
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1 mTs = 5,000,000,000 Cs-133 periods.
Synchronization
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Current Reference UTC
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After initialization, time is derived from
performance.now(). The system clock is not read continuously.Solar Location and Diagnostics
The selected city affects only sunrise and sunset calculations. The URTF clock remains global.
Estimated Rotations Until the Control Phase Ends
≈ -- Rotations
Exact remaining atomic interval: ---:--:--
Control Phase
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Counted from the J2000.0 epoch.
Elapsed in Phase
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Fixed Phase Length
≈ 31.48 Rotations
Exactly 500:00:00 metric hours.
Control Phases in the Orbital Year
Each phase lasts exactly 500 metric hours and runs continuously from J2000.0. An orbital-year boundary may therefore crop the first or last displayed phase, but it never restarts the phase.
| Phase | Interval Within Year | Interval Length | Events |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading astronomical calendar… | |||
URTF reference documentation · draft 1
One global clock,
local biological context.
URTF is an experimental time framework anchored to atomic measurement and the J2000.0 epoch. It separates global coordination from local daylight. Everyone shares one clock, while sunrise, sunset, and biological routines remain attached to a chosen place on Earth.
Core definitions
The vocabulary is intentionally different from the civil calendar. A new term is used whenever an old word would silently import assumptions that no longer apply.
Metric second (mTs)Exactly 5,000,000,000 periods of the cesium-133 transition used by the SI second.
Metric hour10,000 metric seconds, displayed as
01:00:00.RotationOne calendar unit associated with Earth’s solar rotation. It replaces the ambiguous global use of “day.”
Biological dayThe local light-and-dark interval experienced at a selected geographic location. It is contextual, not a second global clock.
Orbital yearThe interval between successive returns of the Sun to the J2000.0 reference longitude in the astronomical model.
Reference meridianThe terrestrial longitude facing the Sun at the start of an orbital year. It transfers when the next year begins.
Control PhaseA continuous interval of exactly 500 metric hours, independent of Rotations and year boundaries.
J2000.0The common epoch from which the global atomic count, orbital-year numbering, and Control Phases are derived.
The global clock
The atomic layer is continuous. The application measures elapsed time using a metric second defined as 5 billion cesium-133 periods. Because the SI second uses 9,192,631,770 periods, one metric second is shorter than one SI second.
1 metric second = 5,000,000,000 Cs-133 periods
1 SI second = 9,192,631,770 Cs-133 periods
metric seconds = SI seconds × 9,192,631,770 / 5,000,000,000
1 metric hour = 10,000 metric seconds
Within a normal Rotation, the display advances from 00:00:00 to 15:88:00. Any remaining astronomical interval is shown as a countdown. The underlying atomic count never stops or reverses; only the human-facing Rotation display resets.
The blue radial mark is the current global
00:00 reference. The purple mark is local solar transit for the selected city. They describe different layers and do not need to coincide.Rotations and orbital years
Year zero
Y0000 begins at J2000.0. At that instant both the atomic framework and the first orbital year begin. The longitude directly facing the Sun becomes that year’s reference meridian.
Within a year
Each orbital year contains 365 numbered Rotations. Their public orientation labels run continuously through the eight-name sequence Firday, Secday, Triday, Forday, Fifday, Sixday, Sevday, and Ateday. The visible day number resets to Day 1 at a year boundary; the hidden naming sequence does not.
End-of-year interval
Earth’s orbit and rotation do not divide into exactly 365 equal units. After Day 365, the interface therefore shows a separate year countdown. At zero, the year number and displayed Rotation time reset and the new reference meridian takes effect.
| Layer | At the year boundary |
|---|---|
| Atomic count | Continues without interruption. |
| Displayed year | Advances to the next Y-number. |
| Displayed Rotation day | Resets to Day 1. |
| Day-name sequence | Continues without resetting. |
| Reference meridian | Transfers to the longitude facing the Sun at the new year event. |
| Control Phase | Continues; it is not cropped or restarted. |
Local biological time
The global clock is the same everywhere. Location is used only to calculate local solar context: transit, sunrise, sunset, and the illuminated part of a Rotation. Selecting another city must not change the global atomic value.
The circular visualization is oriented to local solar motion: local noon is at the top and local midnight at the bottom. The daylight arc is yellow, sunrise and sunset delimit it, and the small Sun marks the current solar position. The green handle maps a familiar local civil time onto the same circle.
Astronomical model: browser sunrise and sunset values use a compact solar approximation. The versioned orbital calendar is generated separately with Astronomy Engine. These are practical estimates, not observatory-grade ephemerides.
Control Phases
A Control Phase is a fixed 500-metric-hour interval counted continuously from J2000.0. Phase boundaries are exact atomic milestones and deliberately ignore calendar boundaries.
phase length = 500 × 10,000 metric seconds
phase index = floor(metric seconds since J2000 / phase length)
phase elapsed = metric seconds since J2000 mod phase length
The recurring names firmon through thimon provide orientation within the displayed year, but the global phase number is authoritative. A phase may begin in one orbital year and end in the next.
The end of a 500-hour interval is neutral infrastructure. A community may use it for a financial closing, the start of an agreement, accounting, governance, maintenance, or any other shared checkpoint. The clock does not prescribe which social action must occur there.
How it could function in society
URTF separates three jobs that conventional civil time combines: precise measurement, global coordination, and local biological planning.
- Coordination: contracts, networks, research, and public events can refer to one global URTF timestamp without time-zone conversion.
- Biology: people still plan sleep, work, meals, and daylight activity using local solar information.
- Administration: fixed Control Phases provide stable recurring boundaries without requiring unequal calendar months.
- Transition: the civil/metric comparison tools remain available while users build intuition for the new scale.
This is a proposal and visualization, not a legal time standard. Adoption would require public definitions, independent implementations, governance, accessibility work, and careful coexistence with UTC and local law.
Technical architecture
| Component | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare Worker | Serves the application and provides a cache-disabled network time endpoint. |
| Browser clock | Anchors once, then advances with the monotonic performance.now() counter. |
| Calendar generator | Builds versioned orbital years, 365 Rotation boundaries, seasonal events, and annual meridians. |
| Astronomy Engine | Finds solar-longitude returns and solar hour-angle events used by the generated calendar. |
| Leaflet / OpenStreetMap | Visualizes current, previous, and next annual reference meridians. |
| Service worker | Caches the application shell for PWA behavior; time API responses remain uncached. |
Synchronization
The client requests three fresh samples from /api/time. Each sample uses four timestamps in an NTP-style offset calculation. Consistent samples may update the anchor; afterward the display continues from the monotonic counter. The shown uncertainty grows with the configured oscillator-drift estimate.
Code model
The current implementation is deliberately small and inspectable. Its important paths are:
src/index.js Cloudflare Worker and time API
public/index.html application, visualization, and calculations
scripts/generate-rotation-calendar.mjs astronomical calendar generator
public/calendar/*.json versioned generated year tables
tests/rotation-calendar.test.mjs structural calendar verification
Atomic conversion
const METRIC_PER_SI = 9_192_631_770 / 5_000_000_000;
metricElapsed = siElapsed * METRIC_PER_SI;
Continuous Control Phase
phase = mod(metricSinceJ2000, 500 * 10_000);
remaining = 500 * 10_000 - phase;
Separation of global and local state
The global Rotation is read from the versioned calendar. The selected IANA city is stored separately and enters only the solar-event functions. This separation is a core invariant of the project.
Status and limitations
Experimental model
- The public year tables are currently generated for a finite range and carry a model uncertainty.
- Future astronomical predictions change slightly as models and Earth-orientation observations improve.
- The Cloudflare time endpoint is a network reference, not a primary cesium clock.
- Sunrise and sunset are affected by atmospheric refraction, elevation, terrain, and the selected model.
- The terminology and social rules remain open design work. This page documents the implementation as it exists today.