Happy...uh...New Year? Well...maybe. Depending on which calendar you go by. The Julian Calendar, instituted about 46 B.C., though they of course did not call it that...if you are ever given a coin dated "B.C." then you have pretty much been scammed....would have you believe today is not today but is actually about 2 weeks ago. You see, a day is not, in fact, 24 hours, nor are there 365 days a year. In fact, our whole method of time dating is screwed up. Oh, not as bad as it was...at least our years are pretty much 365 or 366 days long as near as we can tell.
But are they actually that long or do we just think they are that long? I guess it depends on if we follow the archaic and correct yet incorrect lunar cycle calendar or the correct but not precise solar calendar or if we just decide what the day should be and add a few days whenever we get too far out of whack.
See, so much of what you thought you knew you actually don't. For example, my birth certificate might say I was born on Octember 1st, 1964 (which, since the Octember thing is a reference to Dr. Seuss and I am younger than 40 is obviously incorrect), since our year is about 11 minutes away from being correct, I might actually have been born on Octember 12th...or anywhere in between. Who knows?
In this crazy, mixed up time-world, how do we know how old we are or when stuff happened? Did the Goose and I REALLY wed on 7/7/7 or was it actually the 8th or 6th or....well, when was it? Like I have any chance of getting our anniversary right...
But it gets more complicated yet. Sure, you THINK you know when stuff happens...but you don't. Let's say you are passing the Blue House on Watts Street and it collapses. You look at your watch and it says 10:20 and it happens to be in the morning. But your neighbor is traveling and is in, say...Omaha and was watching the house collapse through your camera phone. They will think it happened at 11:20. But your twin, also watching through your camera phone, lives in Denver and says it happened at 12:20 in the afternoon. Worse, their wife, conveniently watching through the miracle of technology, is in New York and says it happened at 1:20. I won't even get into people in other areas of the world....
The question remains, what time did the event happen? Was it a morning event or an afternoon event?
In other words, you might think you know what time and day something happened, but let's face it; you might not even know the year (see the Chinese Calendar, for example, and how they laughed at the arrival of the new millennium...)
4 years ago
1 comment:
Well, as long as you remember the first of Octember...
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