h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is my latest update on a page I have had around for a couple years. I think it is still worth reading. By the way the Islamic link is brand new.

here's thelink to the page Http://www/bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A436411

oops I did that wrong. I meant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A436411

This looks like an interesting entry. There are a few typos and places where you use upper case in the middle of sentences, but other than that it is good. A careful reading should spot them.

You mention that at least one group want to keep the AD instead of changing to CE and BCE. I think changing to these is an American thing. I've never seen it outside of America and I think that only in the land of "political correctness" would such a crazy idea be thought up.

If you look at jewish websites (even those outside the US) the quite often use CE and BCE.

If you look at jewish websites (even those outside the US) they quite often use CE and BCE.

hi

Interesting start on a subject that needs to be covered but I don't think this is quite ready yet. I perused an encyclopaedia entry and there seems to be much more to say about this subject.

For instance, you seem to suggest that he 'just happened to be a monk' whereas apparently the main motivation behind the creation of this system (and others - he had competition!) was to lay to rest the long-running controversy in the Catholic Church over how to calculate the date of Easter.

There is also mention of the previous 'starting point' being abandoned because of associations of persecution by Diocletian.

By the way, I think you need to explain what AUC stands for.

>>the once mighty Roman Empire was no longer the power which it had been once

Sorry about this, but I really enjoyed that second 'once'.

I believe CE stands for Christian Era rather than Current Era.

Sorry for being negative. I only speak for myself and personally I would prefer to see some more background in this article. Others may think you should keep it short and to the point. It's up to you, of course. Good luck

Spiff

Encyclopaedia Britannica gives CE as either Christian Era or Common Era.

Good article, but it's a pity that we don't have a rather complete article about calendar systems on h2g2. Julian calendar, Georgian, Jewish, Islamic, the rest is of minor importance. Within this context this article would be even better. The only thing I found was
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A435700

By the way, I will never understand the technology behind h2g2. Why has this entry a researcher *and* an editor?

As to the technology, I could be wrong but I believe if there is more than one u number the latest one is put in as editor.
When I did an article on the big bang it listed calroth as researcher and me as editor until a real editor added his number and then my name went in under researcher.
AD the article was started pre-bbc. This meant I was not shagbark but hickory. (that's a story in itself) Peta moved the article to my page making me the second U number on the article.

I have attempted to do some work on this article but I admit it still needs some work. Does anyone know any good BBC sites that I should mention?

Shagbark,

I have heard that Dionysius chose the year he did as AD 1 because it made his calculations of the date of Easter much simpler. That particular year featured an alignment of the sun and moon so that the moon's cycle was in phase with the sun's cycle. Since the year also happened to be roughly at the time that Christ was born, he fixed his calendar there. Nowadays, the general consensus is that Christ was actually born as early as 4 BC. The King Herod described in the story died in 4BC, so he could not have been born later than that. Others point to planetary alignments in 6 BC and say that this is what the "wise men from the East" were watching so that is the most likely date. Of course the 25 Dec date was only chosen many years later.

I believe 25th December comes from Mithraism.

The Prophet.

I like the entry, the title clearly states it is not about calendars in general, but about the AD (CE, whatever) calendar (which happens to be the most widely used). So a mention of the jewish and islamic calendar and the others is OK, but mustn't be explained in full detail.

What I miss in this entry are more detailed infos related to the Christian Calendar. For example: What was the Easter Controversy exactly? Why is there no year O? (Was it because the number ZERO was not known in Europe?) Who invented the leap-year? What is it with the Gregorian and Julian calendars? Why do some historians think that certain years were invented? (Certain historians have raised doubts whether Charlemagne really existed - because there are absolutely no original documents from that time. Inventing such a supreme ruler was not an unusual thing back then. Many rulers liked to glorify their ancestors and their conquests to justify their current territory... OK it is far fetched, but it could be possible that we are currently living in the year 1782. This would also explain numerous missing links which are nowadays called the 'dark ages' because so little is known... Well - but that is not the point here - I hesitate to believe in that - but hey... If some smart historians say it's possible, why not?)... Oh, sorry I got carried away... What else did I miss? Why are the months names the same of the Roman calender? Was there any attempt to christianize these names? Are the orthodox using the same calendar?

You see... There are many questions left open for me.

It's a great topic, and until now quite well-written. Don't let my questions discourage you. It's just that I am curious. These things I questioned are the things I expect to read in an entry on 'AD claendars' in the edited guide. Unconventional wisdom. Far fetched mysteries revealed... That sort of thing.

See you later.

HELL

Ouch I have just been caught in a hailstorm of unanswered questions. I suppose questions relating to the Gregorian Calendar
and when the various countries adopted this calendar for civil affairs is in order. But it would be a very long webpage if I could answer them all and I'm not sure I want to do that much hunting only to prune them out later in order to get the page back to a reasonable length. As far as Charlemagne is conserned maybe an h2g2 article on him would be interesting(let someone else do it.

Oh don't worry. I didn't mean you to answer ALL the questions. And about Charlemagne, of course it's stuff for an isolated entry, it was just a side note.

It's just that there are some questions related to the AD calender that were not tackled in your entry.

Feel free to incorporate (or skip) the following:

-----------------

About Gregorian and Julian Calendars:

The Julian Calendar is the calendar that Julius Caesar ordered from his astronomers. The Roman Empire was huge, and the dates of all the colonies should follow the same sandard and be synchronized. The astronomers did the following:

1 - Include leap years in all other calendars so that the local calendars and the roman calendar were in sync. The solstices should fall on the same date.

2 - Adopt the babylonian 365.25 sun-calendar. (4 year leap-cycle)

This calendar is called the Julian Calendar. Minor modification as to the distribution of days in the months (August and July both having 31 days and others) followed. Then Dyonisius Exiguus pushed the reset button for the Catholics, but the month and day system was the same...

The big problem with the Julian Calendar is that its year is 365.25 days long, whereas in reality it is about 365.242. People are still argueing over the last decimal digit, but this accounts for a difference of about 11 minutes every year, so that every 131 years the solstice is one day out of sync.

For this reason as time went on the Julian Calendar started to increasingly overtake the seasons. This was especially nagging for the Roman Catholic Church because it affected the determination of Easter, which, by the 16th Century, was on the way to slipping into Summer.

When Pope Gregory XIII was elected there were various proposals for calendar reforms being discussed. On 1582-02-24 he issued a papal bull, 'Inter Gravissimas' - adopting one of the proposals (from astronomer Clavius): the Gregorian Calendar reform:

1 - Ten days were jumped from the calendar in the year 1582 (to re-synchronise the seasons and the calendar). The day following (Thursday) October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old calendar) would be (Friday) October 15, 1582.

2 - The rule for leap years was changed. In the Gregorian Calendar
a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a leap year). Thus the years 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900 were not. The next extra-round leap year will be in 2400.

3 - The position of the extra day in a leap year was moved from the day before February 25th to the day following February 28th.

The Gregorian Calendar was immediately adopted by Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, France and Luxembourg. During the next year most other Catholic regions on board. Hungary followed in 1587. The protestant rest of the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland made the change during 1699 to 1701.

The Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Britain (and in the British colonies) in 1752, with (Wednesday) September 2, 1752, being followed immediately by (Thursday) September 14, 1752. These are 11 days ((not 10) because it took so long for Britain to adapt to the rest, that another day needed to be erased.

Orthodox Eastern Europe (who mustn't follow Catholic Papal rules) only adapted between 1912 and 1919. (There are still many people in Russia following their ecclesiastical calendar which is the Julian, so their holy-days are usually 13 days later)

-------------------

Uff... There's another curiosity pertinent to date measuring:

From time to time we have to skip a second, because the earth's orbit around the sun is slowing down. Every 20,000 years it takes 1,5 minutes less (that is, we're slowly spiraling towards the sun).

-------------------

Bye,

HELL


--------------------------

I thought the extra second was because the Earth was slowing down in its period of spinning on its axis, as it is slowed by Frictional Forces caused by the tides. Eventually the Earth will be locked into a synchronous orbit with the moon, so that the Earth will show the same face to the moon all the time (the moon will appear fixed in the sky) and the Earth's day will be about a month long.

This is all just an interesting aside. Don't include any of it in an article on Anno Domini. I don't know how much of the other stuff should be included - Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar etc.

If you are mentioning the controversy over Easter calculations, you might like to put a link to my article on Calculating the Date of Easter, which will be edited by the time this one is, so it's ok to put a link to it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A653267

Hi, Gnomon. Yes, there's this extra second too. But there's also the earth's orbit around the SUN(!!!) which is getting faster and faster, 20,000 years 1,5 minutes.

About not including THIS: I agree - it was merely a side note.

But I think that the Gregorian versus Julian Calendar thing should be included (maybe not as complete as I wrote it here but a 'best-of' extract I think belongs into the entry). After all it is closely related to the church, and all the AD thing.

On the other hand, if this entry's only intention is to explain what the abbreviation AD means, then it should be renamed. IF it's about the AD calendar, then this info belongs in.

Bye,

HELL

Oh... Maybe the extra second is already included in that 1,5 minutes....Sorry... Maybe it's less than 1,5 minutes...

*Checking out that one*

Bye,

HELL

Yes, that's right... The effect is way smaller, and in fact it's not the earth getting closer to the sun, but away from it, so it's the days getting longer and the years getting longer.

Sorry for that confusion,

HELL