| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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Last Updated 01/20/06
THE PROBLEM: HOW LONG IS A YEAR?
Some Tuesdays seem like Saturdays. I wake up on Friday only to check the paper and find it is Wednesday. (Daily papers serve some purpose.) My body clock is not keeping time!
This is not just a phenomenon experienced by retired people. In spite of daily routines, it seems to be a rather common occurrence for one day of the week to seem as if it should be another entirely. Maybe we have an inherent Y2K problem--that is year 2,000 hitch in our systems. It’s not a new problem, knowing how to mark the passage of years.
People have been trying to figure out some way to determine when one year ends and another starts for thousands of years--perhaps since the beginning of man. God has no need of calendars. He has a unique one, but man has the problem.
Early man when he built grand constructions such as the Stone Hedge, using huge stones, seeming to be entirely too heavy to be arranged without machinery, was seeking a way to determine when one year ended and another began. "Surely our world marks time in cycles," he mused, "but when does the cycle end?"
Watching the moon and tides, and how the sun traveled, seemed a clue. Knowing when to plant and harvest, when birds and animals migrated, was important. Surely nature held some clues about marking time.
Here on this continent the inhabitants fretted about the same problem. The Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico figured the length of years very accurately, 365 days. The Hopis and Anasazis erected monoliths through which the sun shone onto a target only once in the year. On the other side of the world, the Chinese had their own methods.
Early man knew that years began and ended in order long before they recognized that the cycle was the time it took the Earth to travel in its orbit around the sun. In fact, that was heresy. Everyone knew that the sun traveled around the Earth, the center of the Universe!
But, finally most countries agree to try the calculations with the Earth doing the traveling. Even though our planet wiggles and waggles in awkward fashion, the orbit takes a fixed amount of time--the markings of which are man made.
So, how to divide the travel time into days, weeks and months? That has been and is a major question bringing about many strange resolutions. The ancient Romans were only fairly accurate with ten months and 354 days, but then Anthony went to Egypt and met Cleopra who had a better measure. The great library in Alexandria had attracted artists and thinkers of all ilk, including astronomers. The Egyptian calendar was grafted into the Roman one, which was running 90 days short at the time, and they came up with twelve months and a leap year.
When Constantine embraced Christianity, new problems were added as the century began with the birth of Christ--the date of which no one is sure. Nonetheless, taking political changes, religious changes, scientific changes into account, and each nation’s loyalty to their own measurement, strange things happened. For example, in 1582, in order to get the calendar in line with the sun, Pope Gregory XIII decided to cut the year by 10 days. People went to bed Thursday, October 4 and woke up Friday the 5th.
In Frankfurt, angry mobs were convinced that the pope had stolen ten days of their lives. Bankers wondered how to calculate interest in a month of 21 days, workers wanted wages for 10 days missed, tax collectors wanted taxes paid. It was a riot.
Then, in 1752, England decided they must do some changing, too. Their Julian calendar was over by 11 days. Philip Dormer Stanhope, convoked parliament it was time to get in line with other countries in Europe. He even wrote rules to help with the translation, but still mobs gathered demanding they be given back their 11 days.
During the centuries, calculations have changed from lunar, based on phases of the moon, to solar, based on the sun. Whatever method, the actual measure, determined by modern atomic clocks is 365.242199 days--and that figure is complicated by the fact that our odd shaped, asymmetrical planet, yanked by the moon’s and sun’s gravitational tugs, varies by a few seconds each year. Even now we are about three hours out of sync.
Not to worry our heads about that. It will be the year 4909 before we are behind a full day. By that time, who will need time?
If, by any slight chance you want to know more about time measure, check the library. They even have books to entertain without teaching you a thing--I’m glad to say. The easy to read large print ones come in most kinds including Westerns, mysteries, and romances. Check it out.