dlm@cuuxb.ATT.COM (Dennis L. Mumaugh) (11/16/88)
In article <27432@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> lum@bat.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lum Johnson) writes: The epoch you're referring to is probably 0000 GMT 17-Nov-1858, the same as for pdp-10 monitors with which I am familiar. The date was chosen by someone at The Smithsonian Institution if I recall correctly; I no longer remember the significance, but it was probably when the Gregorian calendar was adopted by some official group or major government. Actually the epoch is the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. This is logical for cataloging its collection. I claim there is one "logical" epoch and that is the one the Julian date is based upon. It is located back in the time of early recorded history and is based on the common epoch for most historical calendars. Suffice it to say any negative date in that epoch is Soooo old only paleo-archelogoists would need them. Also it has some nice numerical properties for the current era in terms of eliminating parts of the date information. I am sure one can find more information as Julian date has been discussed many times before. -- =Dennis L. Mumaugh Lisle, IL ...!{att,lll-crg}!cuuxb!dlm OR cuuxb!dlm@arpa.att.com
dmi@peregrine.peregrine.com (Dean Inada) (11/17/88)
In article <2199@cuuxb.ATT.COM> dlm@cuuxb.UUCP (Dennis L. Mumaugh) writes: > >In article <27432@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> lum@bat.cis.ohio-state.edu >(Lum Johnson) writes: > The epoch you're referring to is probably 0000 GMT > 17-Nov-1858, the same as for pdp-10 monitors with which I am > familiar. The date was chosen by someone at The Smithsonian > >Actually the epoch is the founding of the Smithsonian > >I claim there is one "logical" epoch and that is the one the >Julian date is based upon. It is located back in the time of 12:00 GMT 16-Nov-1858 is Julian day 2400000. A very millennial epoch for the founding of the Smithsonian, n'est-ce pas?