steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) (08/26/86)
In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ.
What event did people count from before that time?
In other cultures (today or ancient) what events did people
designate as year 0?
I have heard that the Mayan culture 'count' was into the
tens-of-thousands when they disappeared. What conceivable event
could they have been counting from?
Is this topic of interest to anyone else?
Does this belong in some other newsgroup?
Anybody have any answers?
Steve Shellans
Tektronix, Beaverton OR
{decvax, ucbvax, wyvax, ihnp4}!tektronix!tektools!stevesstirling@fortune.UUCP (Patrick Stirling) (08/26/86)
In article <1408@tektools.UUCP> steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) writes: >In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. >What event did people count from before that time? I think Christianity was the first 'mass religion', ie the first to spread over significant portions of the world. Before that I would guess that the largest religion was Judaism - I don't know how they counted years, but seem to remember that they have a year zero, and that it was a long time befoe 0AD - perhaps the birth/death of Abraham or Moses (?). I think that different cutlures counted years differently; eg the Chinese have their own system (now in the year 4500 or so I think). The Romans dated years from the 'crowning' of each Emperor. Islam was founded by Mohammed around 750AD, and they have their own calendar, now in the 1300's. >Is this topic of interest to anyone else? Yes, definitely! Another interesting topic is, why count years at all? I'm sure many cultures don't. Off the cuff, I would guess that it has something to do with writing - recording events on paper rather than by word of mouth. patrick {ihnp4, hplabs, amdcad, ucbvax!dual}!fortune!stirling
smdev@csustan.UUCP (08/26/86)
In article <1408@tektools.UUCP> steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) writes: >In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. >What event did people count from before that time? In preChristian Rome, years were numbered from the semimythical founding of the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus. I can't remember the actual Latin phrase, but I believe that it was something like "the year of the City" or some such. >In other cultures (today or ancient) what events did people >designate as year 0? First a minor nit: 0 is a recent invention; to date, no society that I know of counts from year zero. To the meat of your question, the custom in any number of societies in ancient Mesopotamia (the Tigris/Euphrates valley, in the middle of Iraq) was to count the years in terms of the length of the current king's reign. That is, if Bubblehead the first is king, and has been for 9 years, then the date is referred to as the ninth year of Bubblehead's reign. It makes it kind of difficult to correlate events over a long period of time if you lose a king. Since what we refer to as Western Civilization is traditionally con- sidered to have descended from the societies of Mesopotamia (Sumeria and Babylon are specific examples), it is likely that later (but still preRoman) civilizations (such as Phoenicia and Greece) used a similar method. >Steve Shellans >Tektronix, Beaverton OR >{decvax, ucbvax, wyvax, ihnp4}!tektronix!tektools!steves \scott -- Scott Hazen Mueller lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev City of Turlock work: (209) 668-5590 -or- 5628 901 South Walnut Avenue home: (209) 527-1203 Turlock, CA 95380 <Insert pithy saying here...>
dant@tekla.UUCP (Dan Tilque) (08/26/86)
>From: steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) > In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. > What event did people count from before that time? > In other cultures (today or ancient) what events did people > designate as year 0? > I have heard that the Mayan culture 'count' was into the > tens-of-thousands when they disappeared. What conceivable event > could they have been counting from? > > Is this topic of interest to anyone else? > Does this belong in some other newsgroup? > Anybody have any answers? > > Steve Shellans > Tektronix, Beaverton OR Up until the beginning of the Middle Ages, years were generally counted from the time the current king or emperor took over. The Romans also had a system of years counting from the founding of Rome, but I'm not sure how extensively it was used. Sometime in the 5th century a monk came up with the idea of using the birthyear of Christ as the year 1 and the practice slowly spread. Since at this time, it was not known exactly when Christ was born, the year 1 is probably not when Christ was born. There are several theories about exactly when he was born (most put it from 4 to 7 B.C.). There is also a slight problem with the calendar in that there is no year zero. The years go directly from 1 B.C. to A.D. 1 (obviously this monk was not a C programmer :-). This adds a slight complication when computing durations which start in B.C. and end in A.D. As I understand it, the Mayans counted days from the last recreation of the world which, according to their mythology, went through periodic destruction and recreation. I don't know how they came up with the date of the previous recreation. This is somewhat similar to the Hindu calendar which also had extremely long cycles (the Hindus were counting into the billions and trillions when the Europeans didn't even have a number for million). ========================================================================= Dan Tilque UUCP: tektronix!dadla!dant CSnet: dant%dadla@tektronix ARPAnet: dant%dadla%tektronix@csnet-relay Drugs are for people who can't handle science-fiction. =========================================================================
johnbl@tekig5.UUCP (John Blankenagel) (08/27/86)
In article <140@csustan.UUCP>, smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) writes: > In article <1408@tektools.UUCP> steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) writes: > >In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. > >What event did people count from before that time? > > counts from year zero. To the meat of your question, the custom in any number > of societies in ancient Mesopotamia (the Tigris/Euphrates valley, in the middle > of Iraq) was to count the years in terms of the length of the current king's > reign. That is, if Bubblehead the first is king, and has been for 9 years, > then the date is referred to as the ninth year of Bubblehead's reign. It makes > >Steve Shellans > >Tektronix, Beaverton OR > >{decvax, ucbvax, wyvax, ihnp4}!tektronix!tektools!steves > And the Japanese still do it this way. This year is Showa 63 or 64 or something like that. The current emperor (Hirohito) has been around for about that long. John Blankenagel
charles@geops.UUCP (Bad Charles) (08/27/86)
Jesus Christ! BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini [Year of the Lord] or After Death) are outdated. Now we say for the present, "CE" for Christian era, or "BCE" for before Christian era. Thanks be to the people listed in the Keywords line of this message. /Charles/ Charles E. Camisa Geophysics Program University of Washington
smdev@csustan.UUCP (08/27/86)
In article <6018@fortune.UUCP> stirling@fortune.UUCP (Patrick stirling) writes: >In article <1408@tektools.UUCP> steves@tektools.UUCP (steve shellans) writes: >>In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. >>What event did people count from before that time? > >I think Christianity was the first 'mass religion', ie the first to spread >over significant portions of the world. Before that I would guess that the >largest religion was Judaism Judaism, to the best of my knowledge, has _never_ been a major religion in terms of numbers (which is what I take the word "largest" to mean in the above). The Jewish calendar is an obscure little thing (with a year currently in the 5-or-6 thousands) based on lunar cycles. Certain holidays, such as Passover and, by definition, Easter (the first Sunday after the first night of Passover) are based on this lunar calendar and therefore tend to wander over the more common solar-based calendar in everyday use. >The Romans dated years from the 'crowning' of each Emperor. The Roman calendar is not based on kings; others are, but the Roman calendar is based on when the city of Rome (urbs aeternis, the Eternal City) was founded. This makes sense - if you expect your city to last forever, why not count based on its founding. >Islam was founded by Mohammed around 750AD, and they have their own calendar, >now in the 1300's. No argument here, but I would like to note that the Islamic calendar is also a lunar based calendar. Some years are twelve months long, others are thirteen months; it's all phase-of-the-moon-dependent. >>Is this topic of interest to anyone else? Obviously... Also, if anyone out there lives someplace where they don't/didn't use the so-called "Common Era" (or "Christian Era") and would like to comment based on experience, I'm sure we're all interested in hearing from you. >patrick >{ihnp4, hplabs, amdcad, ucbvax!dual}!fortune!stirling \scott -- Scott Hazen Mueller lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev City of Turlock work: (209) 668-5590 -or- 5628 901 South Walnut Avenue home: (209) 527-1203 Turlock, CA 95380 <Insert pithy saying here...>
zonker@ihlpf.UUCP (Tom Harris) (08/27/86)
> In western culture, we count years from the birth of Christ. > What event did people count from before that time? > In other cultures (today or ancient) what events did people > designate as year 0? > I have heard that the Mayan culture 'count' was into the > tens-of-thousands when they disappeared. What conceivable event > could they have been counting from? The Mayan calendar was lunar, not solar driven. The solar calander was of little concern to them as they lived rain forests where one season is pretty much the same as another. If some one referred to a very high Mayan calender date, I would suspect it referred to lunar months not years. As for Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans while they had city founding dates (mostly mythological) commonly and in official documents time was referred to as the year so and so was in charge. It was not until Herodotus started written history that anybody cares to connect the various dates for cities together and even then only the historians are at all concerned. Note: the founding year of the city had significance only to the various priests prior to that. I know that both the Isrealis and the Chinese have alternate calender systems, but I'm not sure what they are tied to. Even our own system doesn't get set up until several centuries after the fact (I'm not sure when, but it has to be after the Rome/Constaniople split). This is one of the reasons that the time 0 is off by four years (after six centuries people had kind of lost count). Note: 1BC is followed by 1AD there is no year 0. Further it is even more recent, say about the Renaisance, that the majority of people had any idea (or concern) about what year it was (plus or minus a century). It took the rise of the large banking houses and the modern buerucratic state before anybody worried about tracking things over a suffeceint period of time to need to number the years (secularly). Hi Ho, Tom H.
everett@hp-pcd.UUCP (everett) (08/27/86)
In many cultures, years were counted from the beginning of the reign of a particular ruler or dynasty. This was true in many "christian" countries until long after Christ. The Gregorian calendar (the one we currently use) was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. It was adopted in Great Britian and the American colonies in 1752. It threw away 10 or 11 days, which was how much the Julian Calendar was off, due to leap year mis-management. The Julian calendar was introduced in Rome in 46 B.C. It established the 12-month, 365 day year with each 4th year being a leap year The Jewish calendar has 12 months, but each month has only 29 or 30 days, causing a larger drift. In leap years, they add an entire month of 29 days to get back on track. The Muhammadan calendar also has 12 months, but the months retrogress through the seasons, as the year is lunar based, and each month begins at the approximate new moon; the Muhammadan year 1 A.H. began on Friday, July 16, A.D. 622. The Hindu calendar ALSO has 12 months, but an extra month is inserted after every month in which two new moons occur (once in three years). If any of the above is incorrect, please castigate and flay me in public and let my memory live in infamy, for I am stupid enough to believe in the accuracy of a dictionary! Everett Kaser Hewlett-Packard Co. Corvallis, OR
rmb@omepd (Bob Bentley) (08/28/86)
In article <> smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) writes: > >In preChristian Rome, years were numbered from the semimythical founding of >the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus. I can't remember the actual Latin >phrase, but I believe that it was something like "the year of the City" or >some such. > I believe the Latin phrase was "ab urbe condita", usually abbreviated as AUC, meaning "from the founding of the city". Year 0 AUC is traditionally reckoned as 753 BC. -- Bob Bentley Intel Corp. - Hillsboro, Oregon ... ihnp4!verdix!ogcvax!inteloa!rmb "personally my ambition is to get my time as a cockroach shortened for good behaviour and be promoted to a revenue officer it is not much of a step up but i am humble"
mcb@styx.UUCP (08/28/86)
In article <142@csustan.UUCP> smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) writes: > . . . > The Jewish calendar is an obscure little thing (with a year currently > in the 5-or-6 thousands) based on lunar cycles. Certain holidays, such as > Passover and, by definition, Easter (the first Sunday after the first night > of Passover) are based on this lunar calendar [...] Not obscure; merely lunar. (Though the occasional "leap months" do tend to make calculation more interesting.) The current Jewish year is something like 5742. Somebody will no doubt definitively correct this. > Also, if anyone out there lives someplace where they don't/didn't use the > so-called "Common Era" (or "Christian Era") and would like to comment based > on experience, I'm sure we're all interested in hearing from you. When I was in Japan last year I noticed that counting of years was about equally divided between the western system (A.D.) and the traditional Japanese system which is based on the tenure of the emperor. The current year is (I believe) Showa 61. ("Showa", meaning "harmony", is the ceremonial name of the current emperor known to westerners as Hirohito.) Most of the credit card & cash register receipts, etc. showed the date as 60/11/15, 60/XI/15, or 11/15/60 (this was November 1985), but many people spoke of the date as 1985. Michael C. Berch ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (08/28/86)
In addition to the methods already mentioned about the
Romans they also dated by consuls. Thus you would see a
date like `in the year of the consulship of Joe Blow and
Richard Roe'.
The Greeks also had a dating system using the Olympics
every 4 years so you would have `in the 3rd year of the
27th Olympiad'.
--
Joel Upchurch @ CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (A Perkin-Elmer Company)
Southern Development Center
2486 Sand Lake Road/ Orlando, Florida 32809/ (305)850-1031
{decvax!ucf-cs, ihnp4!pesnta, vax135!petsd, akgua!codas}!peora!joelmikel@pyramid.UUCP (Mike Lipsie) (08/28/86)
In article <20804@styx.UUCP> mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: >Not obscure; merely lunar. (Though the occasional "leap months" do tend >to make calculation more interesting.) The current Jewish year is >something like 5742. Somebody will no doubt definitively correct this. > This is approaching the end of 5746. The first day of 5747 is October 4 (according to the date book prepared by the B'nai B'rith which attempts to give all major holidays for Jews, Christians, and various minority groups). -- Mike Lipsie {allegra,cmcl2,decwrl,hplabs,topaz,ut-sally}!pyramid!mikel Pyramid Technology Corp, Mountain View, CA +1 415 965 7200 ext. 4980
abdali@tekchips.UUCP (Kamal Abdali) (08/29/86)
---------------------------------- > >Islam was founded by Mohammed around 750AD, and they have their own calendar, > >now in the 1300's. > >[patrick, {ihnp4, hplabs, amdcad, ucbvax!dual}!fortune!stirling] > > No argument here, but I would like to note that the Islamic calendar is also > a lunar based calendar. Some years are twelve months long, others are > thirteen months; it's all phase-of-the-moon-dependent. > [Scott Hazen Mueller, lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev] > The Islamic calendar is purely lunar and consists of exactly twelve months. The practice of intercalation of an extra month, used in pre-Islamic Arabia to bring the lunar calendar in phase with the solar calendar, was expressly forbidden by Islam. The reason usually given for this command is that because of it the fasting and pilgrimage times rotate through all seasons. Otherwise, it could have happened, for example, that the people of one hemisphere always had to fast during the hot summer days while the people of the other atmosphere always had easier time fasting during the short, cool winter days. Incidentally, we are now at the end of Year 1406 in the Muslim calendar.
scott@hou2g.UUCP (Josiah S. Carberry) (08/29/86)
I remember reading a book of essays by Isaac Asimov in which he proposed a new calendar. I don't remember the details, but it seemed very logical (if unconventional). I believe it had the virtues of not having to account for "leap" years, and each date fell on the same day of the week each year. It had something like an 80 day month, and I think the "week" may not have had 7 days. Anybody remember this, who can post some more details? The book may have been "The Tragedy of the Moon", but I'm not sure. ========================================= "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!" Scott J. Berry ihnp4!hou2g!scott
gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) (08/29/86)
-- > The Gregorian calendar (the one we currently use) was introduced in > 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII... On October 5, to be precise. Which was succeeded by October 15. > ... The Julian calendar was > introduced in Rome in 46 B.C. It established the 12-month, 365 day > year with each 4th year being a leap year... The only difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was the leap-century correxion--a very small nit, but enough to put the thing significantly out of synch with the seasons after 1600 years. > [Excellent synopsis of Jewish, Muhammadan and Hindu lunar calendars] > Everett Kaser The French Revolutionary Calendar, adopted in a spate of utopian fervor by the Revolutionary Convention in 1794, retroactive to 22 September 1792, established 12 months of 30 days each with 5 or 6 intercalary days (depending). They also tried to turn each month into 3 weeks of 10 days each--this was a deliberate attack on the Church--which did not catch on, but mostly because nobody was too happy about forsaking 1 day off per 7 days for 1 in 10. At any rate, it's the French Revolutionary date that appears in my .signature, and my source program is available for the asking. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 29 Aug 86 [12 Fructidor An CXCIV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7753 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***
charles@geops.UUCP (Bad Charles) (08/29/86)
If we use the birth of Christ as a measurement, maybe we should say BTSOB (Before The Star Of Bethlehem) and ATSOB (After The Star Of Bethlehem). Or, why not, if God is dead, B0 (Before Zero) and A0 (after zero). Better yet, since Jesus Christ never wrote anything, let's have BM (Before Matthew) and AM (After Matthew). /Charles/ Charles E. Camisa Geophysics Program University of Washington
abs@nbc1.UUCP (08/29/86)
> In article <142@csustan.UUCP> smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) writes: > > . . . > > The Jewish calendar is an obscure little thing (with a year currently > > in the 5-or-6 thousands) based on lunar cycles. Certain holidays, such as > > Passover and, by definition, Easter (the first Sunday after the first night > > of Passover) are based on this lunar calendar [...] > > Not obscure; merely lunar. (Though the occasional "leap months" do tend > to make calculation more interesting.) The current Jewish year is > something like 5742. Somebody will no doubt definitively correct this. And here's the correction: it's currently 5745. Also: the Jewish calendar is not strictly Lunar (as is the Moslem), but is luni-solar. Although the months are based strictly on the phases of the moon, there is a "leap month" added 7 times every 19 years. (This is where the "solar" part comes in.) So although months tend to wander slightly (when compared to the Christian calendar), it permits religious holidays to occur during the proper time of the year. The Moslem calendar, on the other hand, is purely lunar, and the months wander. Ramadan can be in winter one year, and several years later (14?) it will have cycled around to summer. The Jewish year is based on the date of the creation of the world (gleaned from careful discussion and analysis of biblical sources). Note also that Easter is no longer tied to Passover. One of the popes (Gregory?) devised an alternate algorithm for calculating when Easter occurs (see Knuth Volume I for the exact algorithm). -- Andrew Siegel, N2CN NBC Computer Imaging, New York, NY philabs!nbc1!abs (212)664-5776
djy@mtung.UUCP (DJ Yang) (08/29/86)
> > Also, if anyone out there lives someplace where they don't/didn't use the > > so-called "Common Era" (or "Christian Era") and would like to comment based > > on experience, I'm sure we're all interested in hearing from you. > > Japanese system is based on the tenure of the emperor. The current year > is (I believe) Showa 61, But many people spoke of the date as 1985. > In ancient China, they use the tenure of the emperor, too. But, in addition to that, they also use two more characters to identify it. The first group has 10 different characters and the second has 12 (which most of you might heard of it -- that's the 12 animals [Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar]). So, they refer years as "ABC 12, the year of Dragon", or officially, "ABC 12, the year of XY" where ABC is the name of the emperor and X is a character from group 1 and Y from group 2. There are 60 combinations in this method. So with the year of the emperor and the two characters, historian has very little problem in counting years even in earlt history. After the revolution to overturn Tsing dynasty, there is no more emperor, so they count year as "the 75th year of the Republic of China", which is 1986, the year of Tiger.
bobm@rtech.UUCP (Bob Mcqueer) (09/01/86)
Actually, today is PP, 25 Bcy., 3152 > > I remember reading a book of essays by Isaac Asimov in which > he proposed a new calendar. I don't remember the details, but > it seemed very logical (if unconventional). I believe it had > the virtues of not having to account for "leap" years, and each > date fell on the same day of the week each year. It had something > like an 80 day month, and I think the "week" may not have had > 7 days. > I'm pretty sure I'm not thinking of the same one, but I remember a similar "calendar reform" proposal many years ago. I really don't see how you're going to avoid something like leap year if you want a given date to sync up with the physical seasons across centuries. However, you can arrange things to get dates and days to be consistent. I believe the one I remember kept the 7 day week, but took a one day "year end" day out which was not counted as any day of the week at all, so that the remaining 364 days would be 52 even weeks. On leap years, you simply had two "year end" days. The month names were retained, and the days divvied up among them logically, I believe. I do remember that there were 4 Friday the 13th's every year using the system. Trouble is, even if you don't pay attention to leap years, the Earth didn't oblige us with a very convenient number of days in the year. 5 and 73 are the only factors. You CAN have a cycle of five 73 day months, with 5 days per week and have things work out (like I said, it's really 25 Bcy.) Of course, this is all idle speculation, as such proposals stand about the same chance of being carried out as mass spelling reform or conversion to a duodecimal numbering system. One more thing. I'm in no way sure of my facts on this, but I remember hearing that the ancient Babylonians used a base 60 number system, and insisted that there were 360 days in the year, making for a very neat calender. I'm not sure I believe this, since 5 days of drift a year would get things noticably out of whack in one generation. Bob McQueer -- {amdahl, sun, mtxinu, hoptoad, cpsc6a}!rtech!bobm
hoffman@hdsvx1.UUCP (09/02/86)
Charles E. Camisa writes: > Jesus Christ! BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini [Year of the > Lord] or After Death) are outdated. Now we say for the present, > "CE" for Christian era, or "BCE" for before Christian era. I have only seen this used in Jewish Scholarship and religious texts. Since the whole idea is to avoid using a "Christian" dating scheme, the definition is usually given as "Common Era" for CE (AD) and "Before Common Era" (BCE). -- Richard Hoffman | "Oh life is a wonderful cycle of song, Schlumberger Well Services | A medley of extemporanea. hoffman%hdsvx1@slb-doll.csnet | And Love is a thing that can never go wrong PO Box 2175, Houston, TX 77252 | ... And I am Marie of Roumania." --D. PARKER
evan@pedsgo.UUCP (Evan Marcus) (09/02/86)
Organization : Concurrent Computer Corp. (a Perkin-Elmer Company), Tinton Falls, NJ In article <951@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Josiah S. Carberry) writes: > >I remember reading a book of essays by Isaac Asimov in which >he proposed a new calendar. I don't remember the details, but >it seemed very logical (if unconventional). I believe it had >the virtues of not having to account for "leap" years, and each >date fell on the same day of the week each year. It had something >like an 80 day month, and I think the "week" may not have had >7 days. > >Anybody remember this, who can post some more details? The book >may have been "The Tragedy of the Moon", but I'm not sure. > Well, I don't know if this was proposed by Isaac, but I remember seeing a proposal for another kind of calendar. The calendar I saw had 13 months of 28 days (13 x 28 = 364). Every month could start on the same day, and every month, each date fell on the same day of the week. (i.e. every month the 10th could be a Thursday) The calendar would NOT start on a Sunday, though, for all the superstitious people who didn't like Fridays on the 13th. There would be an extra day (2 in leap years), and these would not fall on a regular part of the calendar; they would not be 'days of the week', but rather would be special days that would simply have names, and be national holidays. Finally, I believe the 13th month was called "Universal". (I think the movie studio was behind it...:-) ) Am I the only person who remembers this system?? -- NAME: Evan L. Marcus UUCP: ...{pesnta|prcrs|princeton|topaz|hjuxa|vax135}!petsd!pedsgo!evan USnail: CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (a Perkin-Elmer Company) M/S 308, 106 Apple St., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 MA BELL:(201) 758-7357 QUOTE: "Use more honey; find out what she knows." -- John Whorfen
evan@pedsgo.UUCP (Evan Marcus) (09/02/86)
Organization : Concurrent Computer Corp. (a Perkin-Elmer Company), Tinton Falls, NJ Keywords: Julius Gregory In article <241@geops.geops.UUCP> charles@geops.UUCP (Bad Charles) writes: >Jesus Christ! BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini [Year of the >Lord] or After Death) are outdated. Now we say for the present, ^^^^^^^^^^^ >"CE" for Christian era, or "BCE" for before Christian era. Thanks >be to the people listed in the Keywords line of this message. > /Charles/ > The idea of referring to AD as 'After Death' always amused me. I always figured that when he was alive, there must have been a period called years 1-30 C or something. Otherwise, he didn't live long enough to have had the kind of impact he did. -- NAME: Evan L. Marcus UUCP: ...{pesnta|prcrs|princeton|topaz|hjuxa|vax135}!petsd!pedsgo!evan USnail: CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (a Perkin-Elmer Company) M/S 308, 106 Apple St., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 MA BELL:(201) 758-7357 QUOTE: "Use more honey; find out what she knows." -- John Whorfen
joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (09/02/86)
>I remember reading a book of essays by Isaac Asimov in which >he proposed a new calendar. I don't remember the details, but >it seemed very logical (if unconventional). I believe it had >the virtues of not having to account for "leap" years, and each >date fell on the same day of the week each year. It had something >like an 80 day month, and I think the "week" may not have had >7 days. > >Anybody remember this, who can post some more details? The book >may have been "The Tragedy of the Moon", but I'm not sure. If I recall correctly, what Asimov proposed was to have 4 quarters of 91 days each, which consisted of 2 months of 30 days and 1 of 31. During a regular year there would be an intercalary day, New Year's day, which wouldn't belong to any quarter or week. During Leap years, Leap day would also be an intercalary day. The advantage to this scheme, is that each quarter would be exactly 13 weeks long, so that a particular date would always fall on the same day of the week. Also since all the quarters are identical, all you really need is a calendar for one quarter, then you could use it forever. I think the chances of calendar reform, rank right up there with decimal time, i.e., slim and none. The basic problem is that the year isn't a integral number of days, and any solution to that is going to be a kludge. It seems to me that the idea of intercalary days, which every calendar reform scheme I've heard of uses, creates nearly as many problems as it solves. The only really elegant solution to the problem would be to move the earth slightly closer to the sun, so that the year is exactly 364 days long. Of course you could get the same effect by slowing down the Earth's rotation slightly, but that would mess up all the clocks. |-> -- Joel Upchurch @ CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (A Perkin-Elmer Company) Southern Development Center 2486 Sand Lake Road/ Orlando, Florida 32809/ (305)850-1031 {decvax!ucf-cs, ihnp4!pesnta, vax135!petsd, akgua!codas}!peora!joel
smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) (09/02/86)
In article <> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Josiah S. Carberry) writes: >I remember reading a book of essays by Isaac Asimov in which >he proposed a new calendar. I don't remember the details, but >it seemed very logical (if unconventional). I believe it had >the virtues of not having to account for "leap" years, and each >date fell on the same day of the week each year. It had something >like an 80 day month, and I think the "week" may not have had >7 days. >Anybody remember this, who can post some more details? The book >may have been "The Tragedy of the Moon", but I'm not sure. > Scott J. Berry ihnp4!hou2g!scott As I recall, he proposed four 90-day quarters (360 days total) which would be arranged in "weeks" (I don't remember how long either, but it was almost certainly a divisor of 90). The rest of the days in a year would be accounted for by inserting days between the quarters. These days would not be part of any week. The result would have been that the same calendar could be used for each and every year (with the relatively trivial exception of leap year, which would create yet another extra day). At the time, I found Isaac's argument very convincing... \scott -- Scott Hazen Mueller lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev City of Turlock work: (209) 668-5590 -or- 5628 901 South Walnut Avenue home: (209) 527-1203 Turlock, CA 95380 <Insert pithy saying here...>
bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) (09/03/86)
In article <243@geops.geops.UUCP> charles@geops.UUCP (Bad Charles) writes: >[...] >Better yet, since Jesus Christ never wrote anything, let's have >BM (Before Matthew) and AM (After Matthew). Odd. I distinctly remembered the Bible stating that Jesus wrote.. so I went and looked it up. Just to be sure it was correctly translated (no, I can't read the original.. I don't know the ancient Greek and Hebrew, why, I can't even read Gaelic (yet :-)). I looked it up in a Parallel Edition (four translations.. now there's a tome with the weight of authority, not to mention the mass! :-). In John 8:6b it says "But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground..", and later in John 8:8 "And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground". Not once, but twice! ..and the King James, New American Standard, New English Bible, and the Jerusalem Bible all agree on this.
fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) (09/03/86)
In article <2292@peora.UUCP>, joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) writes: > The only really elegant solution to the problem would be to > move the earth slightly closer to the sun, so that the year > is exactly 364 days long. Of course you could get the same > effect by slowing down the Earth's rotation slightly, but > that would mess up all the clocks. |-> > -- > Joel Upchurch @ CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (A Perkin-Elmer Company) > Southern Development Center > 2486 Sand Lake Road/ Orlando, Florida 32809/ (305)850-1031 > {decvax!ucf-cs, ihnp4!pesnta, vax135!petsd, akgua!codas}!peora!joel It's good to see someone finally suggesting solutions to the problem instead of just talking about the problem. While you're at it, why not rearrange everything so a year is made up of 100 days, each of which lasts for 10 hours which consist of 100 minutes of 100 seconds. Fabbian Dufoe 350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South St. Petersburg, Florida 33705 813-823-2350 UUCP: ...akgua!akguc!codas!peora!ucf-cs!usfvax2!jc3b21!fgd3
ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (09/04/86)
> largest religion was Judaism - I don't know how they counted years, but seem > to remember that they have a year zero, and that it was a long time befoe 0AD > - perhaps the birth/death of Abraham or Moses (?). I think Year zero was supposedly the creation of the world. Evelyn C. Leeper (201) 957-2070 ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl mtgzy!ecl@topaz.rutgers.edu With drugs you experience everything and understand nothing.
ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (09/04/86)
> Not obscure; merely lunar. (Though the occasional "leap months" do tend > to make calculation more interesting.) The current Jewish year is > something like 5742. Somebody will no doubt definitively correct this. 5746. October 4, 1986 CE, will be Tishri 1, 5747. (My Hebrew calendar conversion program claims today is Elul -1, 5746, however, so there's still a bug somewhere!) Evelyn C. Leeper (201) 957-2070 ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl mtgzy!ecl@topaz.rutgers.edu 'Goto' is a four-letter word.
tim@ism780c.UUCP (envname) (09/05/86)
It was four 91 day intervals, not 90 days. Note that 91 = 7 * 13, so we get to keep 7 day weeks. The extra day came at the end of the year. I think that the extra extra day for leap years came at the middle of the year. Also, the extra days were not counted as days of the week. always falls on the same day of the week. -- I admit it! I don't believe in Mary Worth! I Lied! HaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!! Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim Compuserve: 72257,3706 Delphi or GEnie: mnementh
joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (09/05/86)
Hey I just got a great idea for calendar reform. Lets use a
364 day year. I mean back when 90% of the population were
farmers it made good sense for the calendar and solar year
to match, but now that only 2% of us are farmers, why do all
this stupid arithmetic? So what if it snows in July 120
years from now, the people in the Southern Hemisphere seem
to be able to put up with it. This way we could use the
same calendar every year. The astronomers can keep their
own calendar. %-)
--
Joel Upchurch @ CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (A Perkin-Elmer Company)
Southern Development Center
2486 Sand Lake Road/ Orlando, Florida 32809/ (305)850-1031
{decvax!ucf-cs, ihnp4!pesnta, vax135!petsd, akgua!codas}!peora!joelglenn@c3pe.UUCP (D. Glenn Arthur Jr.) (09/13/86)
In article <451@jc3b21.UUCP>, fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) writes: > > It's good to see someone finally suggesting solutions to the problem > instead of just talking about the problem. While you're at it, why not > rearrange everything so a year is made up of 100 days, each of which lasts > for 10 hours which consist of 100 minutes of 100 seconds. > Your decimal bias is showing. Personally, I favour a binary system. Perhaps 256 days of 32 hours of 64 minutes of 64 seconds? (I could also use the extra time in a day.) D. Glenn Arthur Jr. ..!seismo!dolqci!hqhomes!glenn
dave@murphy.UUCP (Lerxt) (09/16/86)
Well, there's always the Data General RDOS calendar, which begins with
January 0, 1968 (the date of the creation of $LPT). :-)
---
It's been said by many a wise philosopher that when you die and your soul
goes to its final resting place, it has to make a connection in Atlanta.
Dave Cornutt, Gould Computer Systems, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
UUCP: ...{sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!dcornutt
or ...!ucf-cs!novavax!houligan!dcornutt
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