The Calendar: The 5000-year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens - and what Happened to the Missing Ten DaysMeasuring 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). |
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User Review - Leslie - GoodreadsVery interesting and unusual look at history from the viewpoint of the development of the calendar and keeping time. Not a fast read as there are a lot of historical details and people involved in the ... Read full review
Contents
A Lone Genius Proclaims the Truth About Time I | 1 |
Temptress of Time | 10 |
Caesar Embraces the Sun | 29 |
Copyright | |
13 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Calendar: The 5000-year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens ... David Ewing Duncan No preview available - 1999 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | The Calendar: The 5000-year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens - and what Happened to the Missing Ten Days |
| Author | David Ewing Duncan |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Fourth Estate, 1998 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Jun 3, 2008 |
| ISBN | 1857027213, 9781857027211 |
| Length | 360 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |