All of our lives are dominated by the calendar and run by time.
This first general history of the calendar shows how it has changed
over the millennia. The Egyptians were the first to think in these
terms, as early as 4236BC, and it was Julius Caesar who attempted
to impose some conformity across nations in the first century BC.
Despite the fact that his Julian calendar gained time over the
solar year, it was not until 1277 that the great scholar-monk Roger
Bacon pointed out that reform was required and not until 1582 that
the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in Catholic Europe. A
further 170 years would elapse, however, before the change was
accepted in Britain and only in 1949 could the entire world agree
on what day of the year it was. A fascinating account. (Kirkus UK)
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.
General
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