Battlestar Galactica units

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In the original 1978 science fiction movie and television series Battlestar Galactica, the characters used unusual units to measure time and distance.

[edit] Common Lyngo

Frak - As used in the 1978-79 series, a mild exclamation acceptable for use by children. As used in the 2003- series, a very strong profanity, a variation of the word fuck

[edit] Daily Units

The daily units were based on the decimal system. The mainstream interpretation is as follows:

A micron is roughly equivalent to one second.
A centon is 100 microns, and roughly equivalent to 1.66 minutes.
A centar is 100 centons (stated in episode "Take the Celestra"), and is roughly equivalent to 2.77 hours.
A cycle (day) is 10 centars, and roughly equivalent to 27.7 hours.

Others prefer an interpretation more similar to earth time:

A micron is roughly equivalent to about half a second.
A centon is 100 microns, and roughly equivalent to 0.83 minutes.
A centar is 100 centons (stated in episode "Take the Celestra"), and is roughly equivalent to 1.38 hours.
A cycle (day) is 20 centars, and roughly equivalent to 27.7 hours.

Another interpretation is that the writers were using a variation of metric time or decimal time, in which a roughly Earth-standard (24 hour) day is equally divided into base 10 units:

A micron is 10 micro-days, a "decimal second": 0.864 of a second.
A centon is a centi-day, a "decimal minute": 14 minutes, 24 seconds.
A centar is a deci-day, a "metric" or decimal hour: 2 hours, 24 minutes.

It should be noted that some confusion was caused by the use of micron with real world measurment the micron which is one millionth of a metre (0.00003937 of an inch), especially when used it was used as an estimated time until contact, which could be confused with an indication of distance.

[edit] Calendar Units

The weekly, monthly and yearly units may have been based on multiples of 4, 10 and 12, since the 12 star systems of the colonies replicated the Zodiac, the cycle of four in nature, and the need for a digital space-faring time independent of planetary time. With twelve different planets in twelve star systems, none of the colonies could have measured their days and years the same way, therefore an independent system of measuring time was necessary for space travel and military use. (On Earth, a similar situation exists with Commercial Aviation and the NATO military alliance using a standard Zulu time synchronized with Greenwich Mean Time.)

A secton of 8 cycles (days) is roughly comparable to one week.
A quatron of 16 days is roughly comparable to a fortnight. The quatron is so called because it is four units of four days each.
A sectar of 32 days is roughly comparable to one month.
A yahren of 400 days is roughly comparable to one year. A yahren includes 12 sectars named for each of the colonies, and an additional 16 days (4 days per quarter) as interstitial holidays. The name is similar to the German Jahre (meaning "years").
A centuron of 100 yahren.
A millennium of 1000 yahren.