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Urbane Guerrilla · 01-07-2010, 12:37 AM

Jim's count is off by one year. Owing to there not having been a Year Zero (imagine what the calendars would have looked like) for the BC-AD calculations were done in Roman numerals and hence no notation for zero in the first place (even worse for the calendars), the -10 years are the final years of a given decade, the -1 following years the first of the next. Been that way at least since Jesus was a toddler, what with that 4BC-1AD calculation slop (an arithmetical error in the calculation).

Yes, Skysidhe. Planet, singular; Mama Earth. It was either make Earth's rotation the standard, or the timekeeping of a cesium clock, which is precise enough to develop a measurable discrepancy with an earthly wibblewobble. Unfortunately, that would just produce a smaller-scale edition of the kind of discrepancy that got the Julian calendar dumped for the Gregorian over various parts of the globe in various times from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. They had to do a two-week leap, or even more.

So to keep our clocks lined up with the stars, the sun (4 min difference per day, but it recycles) and the world, we have the world and its occasional jiggles as the standard, and reset the cesium clocks to that.

01-07-2010, 12:37 AM	#70
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	Jim's count is off by one year. Owing to there not having been a Year Zero (imagine what the calendars would have looked like) for the BC-AD calculations were done in Roman numerals and hence no notation for zero in the first place (even worse for the calendars), the -10 years are the final years of a given decade, the -1 following years the first of the next. Been that way at least since Jesus was a toddler, what with that 4BC-1AD calculation slop (an arithmetical error in the calculation). Yes, Skysidhe. Planet, singular; Mama Earth. It was either make Earth's rotation the standard, or the timekeeping of a cesium clock, which is precise enough to develop a measurable discrepancy with an earthly wibblewobble. Unfortunately, that would just produce a smaller-scale edition of the kind of discrepancy that got the Julian calendar dumped for the Gregorian over various parts of the globe in various times from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. They had to do a two-week leap, or even more. So to keep our clocks lined up with the stars, the sun (4 min difference per day, but it recycles) and the world, we have the world and its occasional jiggles as the standard, and reset the cesium clocks to that. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course. Last edited by Urbane Guerrilla; 01-07-2010 at 12:46 AM.