# Why do time quantities have to be integers?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-do-time-quantities-have-to-be-integers/5864>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [September 13, 2017, 8:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-do-time-quantities-have-to-be-integers/5864 "2017-09-13T08:52:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 51

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**Author:** ![yakir12](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/yakir12/32/297_2.png) [@yakir12](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yakir12)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-do-time-quantities-have-to-be-integers/5864/51 "2017-10-20T09:24:42Z")

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Please forgive my oh-so-tainted presence, but… I just thought of something that could be great or moot, I’d appreciate your opinions:

Images.jl encodes all pixel intensities as a float between 0 and 1, even though the real value behind the scene is any of the `UInt`s, as is the case in all image formats. They use [FixedPointNumbers.jl](https://github.com/JuliaMath/FixedPointNumbers.jl) to accomplish this. Could we use the same trick here? i.e. allow for float like behavior and appearance but work with actual `Int`s for all the above-listed and indisputable benefits?

Just a thought.

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