The Day Musical Symbols Fell Naturally into Place — Naming History of the Universal Unit System

In the previous post, symbols such as “♮” appeared rather casually.
This seems like a good opportunity to summarize the naming history of
the Universal Unit System as a coherent “story.”

～～～～～～～

The overall system name, Universal Unit System, had no real alternatives.
However, I did spend some time considering what to call the version
synchronized with the Earth’s rotation.

In that version, the time unit multiplied by 12⁵ becomes not 24 hours
but 27 hours (= 9/8 day), and the length unit becomes 8 / 9 feet.
Because both ratios correspond to the just‑intonation major tone
(frequency ratio 9/8), I named this variant the Harmonic System.

For individual units, I wanted to minimize the number of new names
one must memorize, so the basic policy was to reuse SI unit names
whenever possible. Still, for length, time, and mass,
I wanted distinct names.

The TGM system derives its system name from the initials of its time,
length, and mass units. To obtain a similar effect in the Harmonic System,
I worked backward: the length unit became harmon, and the time unit became
nic.^[1] Nic also has a phonetic resemblance to tick.

The remaining mass unit equals 100;^10; unified atomic mass units,
so I named it looloh.The final h reflects the H of the Harmonic System.

Originally, contextual modifiers such as “harmonic” were expressed as suffixes.
However, because the initial letter of looloh inevitably resembles the digit “1,”
I reconsidered the design: the context should be fixed before the unit symbol.
Thus, I changed contextual modifiers to prefixes.
At the same time, I replaced the harmonic modifier “h” with “±.”
This made the unit symbol for looloh “±l,” eliminating ambiguity.
(It also aligns well with English, where modifiers precede what they modify.)

Once the system was named Harmonic,
it became natural to use musical‑symbol metaphors.
If Unillion (= 12⁺⁸) is treated as a whole tone,
then hyper (= 12⁺⁴) fits naturally as “♯,”
and sub (= 12⁻⁴) as “♭.”
Likewise, the modifier natural, indicating that a quantity remains in natural units,
is perfectly represented by “♮.”

～～～～～～～

In fact, there was a period^[2] when I considered using musical symbols
for calendar‑time units instead, as described in the post from 2023-11-27.
So the path was not strictly linear.
But once the peripheral branches are trimmed away,
this “story” captures the essence of the actual design process remarkably well.

[1]As explained in the earlier post, “±l” is a derived unit, so unlike the M
　in the TGM system, it is not used as a component of the system name.

[2] In the end, I abandoned the idea because the symbol U+1D1EC (SYMBL)
　never became practically usable.

-> Japanese