World Time Format

This document is the official explanation of how dates are represented in World Time Format.

Days are grouped into larger units like so:

• An alphabetic month has 26 days.
• An alphabetic year has 26 alphabetic months.
• An alphabetic century has 26 alphabetic years.
• An alphabetic millenium has 26 alphabetic centuries.

Note that we skip the concepts of alphabetic weeks and alphabetic decades. Here's how the alphabetic date divisions compare with standard date divisions:

• 1 alphabetic year = 676 days (very close to a Martian year)
• 1 alphabetic century is about 48.1 years
• 1 alphabetic millenium is about 1250.6 years

Dates always end with a colon. Dates are always capitalized.

You can easily combine a date and a time by separating the parts with a colon (for example, FXR:DB, JU:ARR, K:M).

Some dates are ambiguous. For example, when a date with a single character is given (such as E:), the character is interpreted as an alphabetic day. There are many dates that end in E:, so E: is inherently ambiguous. The ambiguity is resolved by mixing in the missing parts from the current date. If today is RXK:, then E: refers to RXE:. If today is FJSML:, PA: refers to FJSPA:.

World Time Format dates are based on the astronomical Julian day. This is why the first hour, :A, starts at noon instead of midnight.