The Calendar: The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens, and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days

ISBN-13: 9781857029796 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 384 str.

David Ewing Duncan

Opis

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).

Recenzje

"Unmittelbar vor der Jahrtausendwende beweist dieses ausgezeichnete Buch, daß die Entwicklung eines einheitlichen und hilfreichen Kalenders nicht das schlichte Werk von Arbeitsbienen und Erbsenzählern ist, sondern eine der größten Errungenschaften der Menschheit und die Verkörperung unserer kulturellen Geschichte und unseres geistigen Fortschritts." (Stephen Jay Gould)

O autorze

David Ewing Duncan, the author of five books, including the international bestseller 'Calendar', writes for Wired, Discover, and the Atlantic Monthly. He is a freelance producer and correspondent for ABC's Nightline, and a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. He lives in San Francisco, CA.