How did the crew on Star Trek know when their shifts would begin/end?

[Yavin4]

In deep space, there's no such thing as time. Right? So, how would you know when your shift begins/ends?

[virtualobserver]

1. Captain Kirk always knew the stardate, and it always had multiple decimal places

there had to be stardate clocks

[Major Nikon]

2. ...

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/stardate.php

[lunatica]

3. They look at the clock

[Yavin4]

4. The clock is based on what?

There's no concept of time.

[BlueJazz]

5. When things get dark.

[LiberalElite]

23. It's always dark out there. The thing I didn't understand was

the tail lights. Who's traveling behind them? Skip to 1:33...

but i guess there's a lot I don't understand. I was going to say they'd know the shift was ended when the Director yelled CUT!

[BlueJazz]

27. Seems like it would have to be the Flux Capacitors.

Seriously, they would have to use local time (The time on/in their ship).

[Glassunion]

6. Time still exists in deep space. As do dates (hence the "Stardate")

A Standard UFP Solar Day does consist of 24 hours, and most ships in the series have 3 or 4 duty shifts in that period.

However on DS9, their day ran on a 26 hour rotation.

To say that time does not exist in deep space is not accurate. However there is no sunrise or sunset since the sun is rather far away.

My best guess is that all federation ships keep time with either GMT or PST (Federation HQ and the Academy is located in SF).

Now if you want to get real nerdy, imagine how often they'd have to adjust their clocks from the result of traveling at impulse speeds.

[oldandhappy]

7. Thank you

Good summary. I had thot about this and figured it was an arbitrary time decision. You hear someone say this or that at 1400 hours, etc. There can be no time zones really tho an individual galaxy may try! Can you imagine our galaxy as one time zone?? Fun to play with ideas.

[Glassunion]

8. Look at our military. Sure you have bases all over the world

But their time is based on GMT (Zulu) time then figured based on the UTC offset. It is a way for our military, general aviation and maritime folks to have a universal standard in which to operate.

The one thing on Star Trek that always got me was when they are traveling at warp speeds (basically bending space around the ship), they are not effected by differences in time. Now impulse travel is at speeds that can approach light speed without warping space around the vessel. This has the adverse effect of slowing time relative to the ship, so their clocks (chronometers) would fall behind a stationary clock.

[pinboy3niner]

9. They have a special ritual for resetting the clocks after warp/pulse travel

[geardaddy]

14. Yes!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. being a nerd and physics major...

...I thought I'd share this on the relativistic contraction that occurs concurrent with the dilation of time at near light speeds.

there was a young fellow named Fisk
whose fencing was exceedingly brisk
so fast was his action
the Fitzgerald contraction
reduced his rapier to a disk.

[sarge43]

13. Traveling at relativistic speeds, even 10% of FTL, would de-syn their clocks in relation

to UFP Mean. Every time system, including biological, would be.

Another nerdy, at FTL speed, would there be any 'time'? Once beyond the constant of light speed (if possible), are we in the "stranger than we can imagine" arena?

[Glassunion]

16. Not sure about your question.

So here is my theory on the make believe. If they are traveling outside of space (sub space), in their own bubble of normal space inside of the warp field, wouldn't their clocks be ticking at a relative rate as someone stationary in space?

I recall an episode of Voyager where it was mentioned that once they had made contact through (I think) a wormhole back to their home quadrant to a Federation beacon, the captain ordered all of the chronometers reset.

[sarge43]

18. I didn't see your explanation about the Warp bubble.

However, I think Clarke may have pointed out a fundamental problem with the bubble before Trek writers came up with it. In his short story Superiority, a civilization developed the 'ultimate' weapon - spaceships that could in effect warp. They couldn't be counterattack; they'd be on top of their enemy, attack and gone in a blink.

Problem was that every time a ship warped, it affected the atomic structure of the ship and everything/one on it. The effect was subtle, but cumulative. The structure became so altered that the ships and crew eventually and literally fell apart.

In short, in this universe nothing is free; every cause has an effect. The massive amount of energy it would take to create a bubble must have an impact.

Nerd musings.

[Glassunion]

19. IIRC the ships had to occasionally go through a cleansing

to clean the residual radiation effects of warp travel.

There was also an episode where warp fields were damaging a region of space.

Need musings indeed.

[sarge43]

20. ST: TNG fan too I see.

Mention Trek and nerds flock.

[Glassunion]

21. Hell yeah.

The warp effects episode was Voyager if I'm recalling correctly. They had to impulse across a vast amount of space. Basically the creation of a warp field was destroying the space they were traveling through.

I'm a fan of all of the Treks... Not so much DS9. But the rest were fantastic.

[sarge43]

28. It was a TNG episode

The Federation put a limit on warp hours and speed; it didn't take.

I liked DS9. It took a look at the darker side of human nature. As Quark warned his nephew - when hoomans are warm, well fed and at peace they're the nicest beings in the galaxy. If they're hungry, cold and backs against the wall, they're nastier than Klingons.

[Glassunion]

29. You are correct.

Force of Nature episode.

I gotta stop watching the different series so close to each other.

[arcane1]

31. I read once that this was the reason they used stardates. It somehow compensates for relativity.

I'm sure this is after-the-fact reasoning, but it's cool

[malthaussen]

11. Does anybody really know what time it is?

-- Mal

[Avalux]

12. Time is a construct of human minds. Time exists on the Enterprise even in deep space.

I have often wondered...what if we didn't obsess over time down to the second (always feeling like there isn't enough!), and our lives were just one long day? We slept when we got tired, ate when we were hungry...just kind of flowed. Would we even age?

If you believe that thoughts become things, then our belief in time actually causes us to age.

[Glassunion]

17. Is it a construct of the mind? Or was it simply a discovery of something that always existed?

Or is it simply a way we measure things? We measure distance, volume, amplitude, etc... why not measure the passage of moments?

That said, is it linear and always moving forward?

On edit: Since we are delving into the arena of stoner talk... I think the brain is the only thing in our known universe to name itself.

[geardaddy]

15. When the tribbles crow?

[pinboy3niner]

22. Another Trouble with Tribbles is that they have no sense of time

[sarge43]

24. That can be a tribulation n/t

[Glassunion]

25. Ok.. I did laugh out loud on that. +1 Sarge

[pinboy3niner]

32. They're no good for alarm clocks--they are nothing but trebble

[Glassunion]

26. More importantly... Do sonic showers really get you clean.

How do you get into the nooks and crannies? Especially the crannies.

[PoliticAverse]

30. Not only were they on duty 24/7/365 they didn't get paid. Star Trek was a warning

of a dystopian future.

[Zorro]

33. Apple Smart Watches