[LEAPSECS] LEAPSECS Digest, Vol 88, Issue 31

[Kevin Birth]

Because Roman reckoning did not include a zero, the leap year in Julius Caesar's calendar was miscalculated.  They instituted a leap year ever 3 years rather than every four because the 1st and 4th year of the cycle were considered the same (a fence post error).  Augustus corrected this error in @8 AD .

Cheers,

Kevin


Kevin K. Birth, Professor
Department of Anthropology
Queens College, City University of New York
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11367
telephone: 718/997-5518

"We may live longer but we may be subject to peculiar contagion and spiritual torpor or illiteracies of the imagination" --Wilson Harris

"Tempus est mundi instabilis motus, rerumque labentium cursus." --Hrabanus Maurus

From: Joseph M Gwinn <gwinn at raytheon.com<mailto:gwinn at raytheon.com>>
Reply-To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com<mailto:leapsecs at leapsecond.com>>
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 7:17 PM
To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk<mailto:phk at phk.freebsd.dk>>
Cc: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com<mailto:leapsecs at leapsecond.com>>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] LEAPSECS Digest, Vol 88, Issue 31


Well, while the idea of zero wasn't well established in Christ's time, they did have zero (and negative numbers) in the time of Pope Gregory, who established the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.  But zero can still mean nothing to this day, so it seems unlikely that any religion will claim year zero.

..<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28number%29>


Joe Gwinn


[Inactive hide details for "Poul-Henning Kamp" ---01/14/2014 07:01:36 PM---In message <OF8E203EEC.858D9F51-ON85257C60.008191BF-8]"Poul-Henning Kamp" ---01/14/2014 07:01:36 PM---In message <OF8E203EEC.858D9F51-ON85257C60.008191BF-85257C60.0081B23E at mck.us.ra<mailto:OF8E203EEC.858D9F51-ON85257C60.008191BF-85257C60.0081B23E at mck.us.ra> y.com>, Joseph M Gwi

From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk<mailto:phk at phk.freebsd.dk>>
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com<mailto:leapsecs at leapsecond.com>>, Joseph M Gwinn <gwinn at raytheon.com<mailto:gwinn at raytheon.com>>
Date: 01/14/2014 07:01 PM
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] LEAPSECS Digest, Vol 88, Issue 31

________________________________



In message <OF8E203EEC.858D9F51-ON85257C60.008191BF-85257C60.0081B23E at mck.us.ra<mailto:OF8E203EEC.858D9F51-ON85257C60.008191BF-85257C60.0081B23E at mck.us.ra>
y.com>, Joseph M Gwinn writes:


>The problem was religious - nobody was going to have Christ born in the

>year zero.


Actually, that was not really the issue, the issue was that they
didn't have negative numbers at that time and therefore also
didn't realize that "nothing" was a number.

Negative numbers only came into acceptance during the heydays of
the Venetian trade, where somebody, can't remember the name, argued
that "we need negative numbers for this, because he owes more than
he owns." or words to similar effect.

At the time the "Anno Domini" convention was put into tradition,
it would only make sense for them to talk about the year before and
the year after.  Nobody would have any reason to put a zero in there,

If they had tried to do so, it would give no meaning to them, because
"year zero" would literally mean "no year" or "year of nothing".

--
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG<mailto:phk at FreeBSD.ORG>         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/leapsecs/attachments/20140115/a3287f7a/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: graycol.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 105 bytes
Desc: graycol.gif
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/leapsecs/attachments/20140115/a3287f7a/attachment.gif>