Timeline for I'm stranded on an alien planet. How do I measure an earth year without a clock?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 24, 2015 at 21:36 | comment | added | njzk2 | I seriously doubt that most people have a 24-hour cycle. | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 19:33 | comment | added | user3082 | Humans sync to 28 hours, in the absence of cues (of which the planet will have plenty). ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10839 | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 7:50 | comment | added | Taemyr | Jetlag disappears over time. This shows that your internal clock synchronises to the natural daylight cycle. So counting sleep cycles is going to have a huge error margin | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 1:18 | comment | added | nitsua60 | Had no problem doing 6 28-hour days each week for a few straight years in grad school. It got me to the mid-day collaboration meeting each week, but still allowed me to take four overnight shifts each week at my experiment. Nine down, nineteen up with a half-hour nap somewhere in there, and that was against the driving stimulus of the 24-hour natural light cycle. Don't trust in a "natural" 24-hour cycle that you'll maintain alone. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 23:30 | comment | added | MichaelS | @DoubleDouble, I'm the same. My natural sleep cycle is closer to 28 or 30 hours depending on what I'm doing. Even with natural lighting around me (i.e., not putting heavy drapes on the windows or anything), I tend to go to sleep and wake up several hours later each day if I don't have a job or anything forcing me to keep a schedule. Also, I'm not sure where people got the notion that "normal" sleep is 8 hours, but I've never met anyone who can fall asleep and naturally wake up 8 hours later. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 21:28 | comment | added | Mark | Most people can adapt to a day-night cycle of 22 to 26 hours; if the planet's day is within that range, you can't count on your internal clock. For example, if you wound up on Mars, waiting 365 sleep cycles would put you at the gate a little over a week late. (The article you link is about how people don't adapt to a 8766-hour day.) | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:41 | comment | added | Green | @KillingTime, fair enough. I don't know of any research into human circadian rhythms under frequent night time stress. I don't know what will happen. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:40 | history | edited | Green | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 179 characters in body
|
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:39 | comment | added | KillingTime | I didn't say you wouldn't sleep, merely that you might not get a regular, uninterrupted 8 hours every day. If you end up cat-napping for 2-3 hours between disturbances that's not going to help establish a neat baseline for time measurement. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:38 | comment | added | Green | @DoubleDouble I found this in a paper from NIH: "A few people desynchronize from the 24-h day (free-run) and show their intrinsic circadian period, usually >24 h." This leads me to believe that most people keep a 24 hour day cycle regardless of the length of nighttime or daylight. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:34 | comment | added | Green | You can't not sleep. 24, 48, 72, 96 hours? Eventually you're brain will force you to sleep. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:30 | comment | added | KillingTime | @Green you might not have any tech but you might have some alien night visitors that keep you awake. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:29 | comment | added | DoubleDouble | But isn't that an argument against my body's internal clock? If it is affected by how much light there is or whether I can perform activities I may find myself adapting to the new planet's daily time? I realize you say that light will have to be consistent.. I guess if it were me in this situation I don't think I would trust my body's sense of time. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:28 | comment | added | Green | @KillingTime, Eventually your body will shutdown for sleep. If the OP manages to survive for a couple of weeks then a regular sleep cycle should emerge. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:27 | comment | added | Green | @DoubleDouble, I suspect that technology and bright screens may have something to do with that. On this world, you have no tech to keep you up. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:26 | comment | added | DoubleDouble | My body's internal clock attempts to get me to go to bed later and later, and therefore get up later and later. | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:25 | comment | added | KillingTime | You don't think that the stress of being in a survival situation in a totally alien environment might affect your sleep cycles? | |
| Sep 21, 2015 at 20:23 | history | answered | Green | CC BY-SA 3.0 |