A View from the Back of the Envelope top

A dot for every second in the day
Getting a feel for big numbers
Lots of dots
A dot for each day

You can use Lots of dots to get a feel for time.

At one dot per second,
here is what a day looks like...

Run it as a clock!

(Any problems? Please let me know.)

One Day where each dot is one second.










00:00 to 02:47 - 05:33 - 07:10
- 11:06 - 13:53
(1:53 pm) 		- 16:40
(4:40 pm)
- 19:27
(7:27 pm)		 - 22:13
(10:13 pm) 		- 24:00
(midnight)
early
daytime
late

one second
ten seconds
hundred seconds (10 x 10 = 100)
about a minute and a half
minute (60 seconds; 6 x 10)
5 minutes (300 seconds; 3 x 100)
10 minutes (600 seconds; 6 x 100)
15 minutes (900 seconds; 9 x 100)
thousand seconds (10 x 10 x 10 = 10 x 100 = 1000)
about 15 minutes




hour
3600 seconds (60 seconds per minute x 60 minutes)
3 x 1000 plus 6 x 100






6 x 6 = 36
ten thousand seconds
almost 3 hours (2 and 3/4 hours)
102 x 102 = 104 (10000 ; ten thousand )











500 minutes (30 thousand seconds; 3 x 104 s; ~8 hrs)

~1500 minutes == 1 day (1440 min; i.e. a -4% error)

A View from the Back of the Envelope
Comments encouraged. - Mitchell N Charity <mcharity@lcs.mit.edu> 

Notes:
  The clock needs to "phone home" every few minutes to get a new layout
    with the active zone moved.  Sorry.  Please let me know if this is an issue.
  Thanks to a reader's appreciation of `Lots of dots' for prompting this page.
  Sometimes there is a gap which isn't colored in for some minutes.
  Why is the bottom-right corner of the box not filled in?
     Because there are only 60 x 60 x 24 = 86400 seconds in a day,
     but the big box is        300 x 300 = 90000 dots. 
                                         So 3600 are blank.(4%)
     Thanks to a reader for the question.


Doables:
  Talk about (or link to) different kinds of "day".
  I'm not sure this background is the right thing. [Removed]
  `YEAR Mon SECOND' and `Year SECOND' counters.
  % of day.  Place 86400 near second counter.
  Being able to toggle the color would be neat (black is sleep,
    green is practicing guitar, etc).  But rather more complex to program.
    Perhaps an ephemeral toggle on whether to color?
  For browsers that support div, could add time-of-day overlay.
    And event markers.
  A year-line, dot per day. (uncomfortably long?)  Since 1950 stack.
  Reverse?  Fill up with experience, rather than drain opportunity. :)


History:
  2015-Jul-22  Replaced with identical(?) static page.  Hosting provider issue.
  2002-Jun-25  Adapted to new browsers.
  2001-Aug-29  Javascript change (browser compatibility).
  2001-Apr-28  Added note re "why is the box corner not filled in?"
  2001-Apr-14  Some cleanup.
  2001-Apr-12  Created.