Harvey wrote:
> BC AD
> 3 2 1 1 2 3
>
> Or, using a numerical approach (negative dates for BC):
> -3 -2 -1 1 2 3
> Dec. 31, 1 BC was followed by Jan. 1, 1 AD (in our terminology). It's
> a world standard. It's just the way it is.
"The way it is" unfortunately introduced, precisely because there is no
zero in between _1 and 1, a needless complication when one wants to know
how many years forward (or backward) some years (the left argument) are
relative to a given year (the right argument); see [0]. Try to write a
verb that accomplishes that task using the "numerical approach", and
compare it to the verb (-) corresponding to the astronomical numbering (you
can blame Kepler for the latter one; he is regarded as its intellectual
author).
We presently have, as R.E. Boss pointed out, a peculiar way to measure time
and produce timestamps; for fractions of a second, we use the modern
decimal system: deciseconds, centiseconds, milliseconds, and so on all the
way down (unless a quantum foam would interfere at a certain point).
However, for multiples of a second is when the s___ hits the fan: due to
Babylonian and Egyptian influence, we have one minute of 60 seconds, one
hour of 60 minutes, one day of 24 hours. Then, it gets even worse due to
Greek and Roman influence: one year of 12 months, numbered from 1 to 12 (when
the months are not explicitly named), and months of different numbers of
days, numbered from 1 to the last day, and the number of days of one
particular month depends on awfully complicated rules! Why do we keep
these messy rules? Because, for some reason, people like to refer to years
in their current timestamps. As if that was not bad enough, there is the
curious case of the missing year 0 in between 1 BC and AD 1, and the
missing decade 0 in between the 1st decade BC and the 1st decade AD, and so
on, which ensures endless discussions about when a given cycle ends and
another begins.
However, there is a simple way to avoid this royal mess, as I mentioned
earlier in this thread, which some people figure it out more than two
millennia ago: just count days starting from a certain day 0, use a
positional notation and, while doing so, employ those numbers as timestamps!
There is no reason for not doing something similar in modern style with
modern technology: pick any specific day (and time of the day) in the past
as the anchor day 0, use the offset in terms of the familiar base 10
notation and include several digits after the decimal point to produce more
accurate timestamps. Maybe someday it will be implemented... Actually, it
is up and running; see, for example, Julian Day in [1].
What about those that would prefer to use years instead of days? They can
choose their favorite kind of year (Julian, Tropical, Sideral, Gaussian,
you name it) and use the appropriate factor to make the conversion.
Only a very small fraction of people know and use this day-based system and
probably nothing will change for a very long time. Yet, a similar system
might operate some day in the distant future [2].
[0] [Jchat] How close is J to APL?
http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/chat/2018-May/007765.html
[1] Sideral Clock
http://www.jgiesen.de/astro/astroJS/siderealClock/
[2] Stardate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcRX0Gw1aaw
On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 3:47 AM, PR PackRat <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 6/1/18, R.E. Boss <[email protected]> wrote:
> > IMO there is definitely a year 0, ...
>
> With all due respect, ask any historian (or others who deal with dates
> in the various divisions of knowledge). I'm sure they will indicate
> that the years at the switch between BC and AD are as follows (I can't
> do nonproportional spacing in Gmail, so please excuse the possible
> appearance):
>
> BC AD
> 3 2 1 1 2 3
>
> Or, using a numerical approach (negative dates for BC):
>
> -3 -2 -1 1 2 3
>
> Dec. 31, 1 BC was followed by Jan. 1, 1 AD (in our terminology). It's
> a world standard. It's just the way it is.
>
> Of course, nobody back then used those dates. The dates would would
> have been in terms of A.U.C. (ab urbe condita = "from the founding of
> the ciry [of Rome]"), which occurred in our 753 BC. So 753 AUC (1 BC)
> would have been followed by 754 AUC (1 AD). The current year
> numbering system (BC, AD) was developed by a monk named Dionysius
> Exiguus in 525. So blame *him*. ;-)
>
> > and whether Christ was born in that year, or not, I don't care?
>
> The exact year of the birth of Jesus Christ is unknown, so it really
> doesn't matter. But it certainly was not in a year 0 or even the year
> 1. He had to have been born before Herod the Great died, which is
> usually dated as 2 BC or 1 BC. Some astronomers favor Christ's birth
> as early as around 6 BC or 5 BC for astronomical/astrological reasons
> (but the wise men = astrologers may have started 2 years earlier than
> the birth). This leaves 4 BC to 2 BC as the most commonly stated
> possibilities. Why the discrepancy? Dionysius (above) made an error
> based on which Roman records he used for the dating.
>
> Harvey
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