Who Knows Where the Time Goes

Subject: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Lanfranc
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 10:32 AM

For all those who wonder what all this Millennial blether is about, a few thoughts. (The reference to Sandy Denny's song was just to further confuse life!)

Blame it on a sixth-century monk called Dionysus Exiguous (Or Dennis the Little for non-Latin speakers).

The way I heard it, when the decision was made (by the church) to start the calendar from the birth of Christ, there was no concept (in European mathematics at least) of Zero. Thus there was no year zero. They'd got it wrong anyway, because, in all historical probability, Christ was born in what we would now refer to as 4BC.

Anyway, dear old Dennis carries the can to this day.

Given the number of Millennium projects that are running late, a last-minute change of mind from at least one Government is likely.

Oh, yes, another little wrinkle in the timeline continuum.

Years ending in 00 are not leap years, although divisible by 4, unless divisible by 400, thus 1900 wasn't, 2000 is and 1600 was (assuming the rule was in place then!)

Before we get too wound up about it, remember a more inclusive version of AD is CE (Christian Era) - the Jewish and Muslim faiths, to name but two, have their own Year zero (or one?!)

Is your computer Y3K compliant? Does it matter?

It's all relative.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 10:59 AM

I've always understood the A.D. reckoning to have spread informally. The pope of Rome, since he is "Pontifex Maximus", and therefore in charge of the calendar of the city of Rome, may have deliberately decided the matter for his city, and his prestige may have influenced others' decision to use the A.D. reckoning, but this is pure guesswork. Was there ever a formal adoption of the A.D. system before circa 1100 ? Maybe, but I can't think of one.

The Gregorian Calendar (which leaves out centurial leaps except the year be divisible by 400) was adopted in 1588 by many Roman Catholic countries, but many Protestant countries continued using the old Julain Calendar for some time. Hence 1700 was a leap year in England and English North America by the calendar then in use, but not in Italy. (This was the almanac-year 1700. The Civil year 1700 didn't start until March 25.)

The Gregorian calendar was adopted in England around 1752. The Encyclopedia Britannica claims that there were riots in Bristol over the adoption of the New Style, but I think these "Bristol calendar riots" are pure myth: they never happened. The calendar may have been an issue in some parliamentary elections around the time of the adoption of the New Style, and in some places there may have been election-related violence--this is what the famous Hogarth picture suggests--but I doubt there were any disturbances deriving purely from the adoption of the calendar.

The Jewish Calendar begins with the year 1, according to every source I have ever consulted.

I must admit that I have written much software that is not Y-10-K (YXK?) compliant. It will have to be modified in the year 9999 to allow for 5-digit year numbers.

T.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: MMario
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 11:24 AM

According to my Roman Numeral Handbook, ten thousand would be X with an overscore....(line above) so 'round about dec 9999 we would be worrying about Yoverscorex.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Brakn
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 08:37 PM

Sandy Denny did a song called the same.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 10:18 PM

Geeziz, am I ever disappointed. I thought somebody found my watch. Damn.....

Spaw

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: sophocleese
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 10:27 PM

Last February my brother was explaining a theory to me. I wish I knew where it had originated. Basically it was that we are actually about three hundred years away from the millenium because the church mucked up the dates early on and then fudged everything afterwards, thus, in many cases giving them title to land they would otherwise have had to dispute over. A sort of medieval conspiracy theory. Anybody else heard about this one?

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Alan Francis
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:36 AM

I started this as a bit of fun, never dreaming I'd unearth a seventeen hundred year old conspiracy!

Sophocleese (a fawlty thought?) may have stumbled on the reason for the "Dark Ages" that came after the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe. They didn't happen at all, the church just fudged the records.

Is this an appropriate thread for us Mudcats?

I tend to the cock-up rather than the conspiracy theory of history, but I'm prepared to be corrected.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:59 AM

Yeah, yeah, yeah.........but has anybody found my watch?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 10:00 AM

'Spaw, I'll keep an eye out for your watch.

Soph, that notion sounds pretty farfetched. My impression is: land-grabs in the middle ages were usually managed by brute force (some'll rob you with a sixgun) or forged documents (some with a fountain pen.) Gerrymandering the calendar would seem far too difficult and unlikely to succeed, and so unlikely to be used when simpler, more reliable methods for obtaining the same ends were available.

T.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 10:55 AM

It's the year 5760 (in the Jewish calendar) and the end time is scheduled for the year 6000, because there are 6 alephs in the first sentence of B'reshis (Genesis)--or so I've heard somewhere, not that I'd put much credence in it. But now you can pass it along as fact, because you "read it on the Internet." So there are 240 years left before the next millennium.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 11:15 AM

A number of other upcoming millennial years were listed here. T.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Bert
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:04 PM

I was born two thousand years ago
Which means that I was born in the year O

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:35 PM

Sod all this years business, GIVE US BACK OUR 11 DAYS!!!

(to keep British time in line with Rome, Pope Gregory XIII made Britain adopt the new Gregorian calendar, rather than the proper Julian calendar. Thus the day after September 2 1751 was actually 14 Sept, not 3rd as you would think, so he deserves some of the blame as well..)

LTS

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: MMario
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:40 PM

ah - but LtS - admit it...the Julian calander was hopelessly cocked-up in regards to the celestial dates....and by going to the Gregorian calander things got much closer...and will stay that way longer....

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:41 PM

An American student successfully challenged the SAT tests some years ago when the supposed true answer to the question, "When was George Washington's birthday?" (Feb. 22) was wrong because he was born before 1751.
CP, if I am walking in the desert, and I find a melted watch, does that mean the universe was created by Salvador Dali?
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:50 PM

And that furry melted puddle with the yellow cloth in the corner is presumably Dali's llama.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Who Knows Where the Time Goes
From: sophocleese
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 04:12 PM

T in Oklahoma of course it sounds far-fetched, doesn't mean it ain't true though. Who kept a calendar going constantly from 0 through to 2000?

Subject: What Happens to Time When It's Past?
From: AKS
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 04:23 AM

Here's one effort to answer the question presented in the thread's title:

(sung by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners - I don't remember the title nor author, haven't got the record here at job with me, the lyrics somehow got stuck on me)



When I was a young man sometimes I'd wonder
what happens to time when it's past
then one day I found out that time just lands in prison
and there it is held fast

When I was a young man used to go courting
and dream of the moon and the stars
the moon is still shining but the dreams they are all broken
on these hard iron bars

Look out of the window over the roof there
and over the walls see the sky
just one flying leap and you could make your get-away
if only you could fly

The prison is sleeping the night watch is keeping
its watch over seven hundred men
and behind ev'ry cell door a sleeping lag is dreaming
oh to be free again

Go write me a letter addressed to my number
but say you remember my name
so I'll be reminded of how the world outside goes
and feel a man again

Got time on my hands got time on my shoulders
got plenty of time on my mind
there's no summer or winter when once you land inside here
just this old prison grind


season's greetings from Joensuu, Finland
Arto K S