The Calendar

The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens, and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days

By:

David Ewing Duncan

Format:

Paperback / softback

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Description

Measuring the daily and yearly cycle of the cosmos has never been entirely straightforward. The year 2000 is alternatively the year 2544 (Buddhist), 6236 (Ancient Egyptian), 5761 (Jewish) or simply the Year of the Dragon (Chinese). The story of the creation of the Western calendar, which is related in this book, is a story of emperors and popes, mathematicians and monks, and the growth of scientific calculation to the point where, bizarrely, our measurement of time by atomic pulses is now more accurate than time itself: the Earth is an elderly lady and slightly eccentric - she loses half a second a century. Days have been invented (Julius Caesar needed an extra 80 days in 46BC), lost (Pope Gregory XIII ditched ten days in 1582) and moved (because Julius Caesar had 31 in his month, Augustus determined that he should have the same, so he pinched one from February). Published with the world under threat from chaos arising from the expiry of computer dates after 31st December 1999, this study links politics and religion, astronomy and mathematics, and Cleopatra and Stephen Hawking.

Author Biography:

David Ewing Duncan is a writer and traveller. The author of three previous books this is his first UK publication. He is also the curator of the Smithsonian exhibition of The Calendar.

Release date NZ

May 6th, 1999

Author

David Ewing Duncan

Audiences

General (US: Trade)
Professional & Vocational

Illustrations

(line drawings)

Pages

384

Dimensions

126x178x29

ISBN-13

9781857029796

Product ID

1652829

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