Talk:Holocene calendar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Sci-fi after Cesare Emiliani 1.1 True or False? 1.2 More T or F ? 2 Let's convert the oldest Americans

[edit] Sci-fi after Cesare Emiliani

[edit] True or False?

The article claims:

The calendar was shifted by 10 days in the 1500s to account for a discrepancy in the earlier Julian Calendar. This makes dating of events around the period of the shift tricky.

The shift is true. That Cesare's calendar corrects for the 10 days shift is false. Explain why it would be less tricky or the statement will be deleted. Jclerman 16:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This was a mistake - the HE calendar obviously contains the same shift as the Julian/Gregorian calendar. I have removed the comment.--Oscar Bravo 12:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

There is no year zero. 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1. This makes calculations complicated.

True there is no year zero. That calculations are complicated is wrong, unless the user can not add 1 when computing accross the boundary BC/AD. Explain where does the compexity reside, or the statement will be deleted Jclerman 16:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Combined with statement below and edited (see note below).--Oscar Bravo 12:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

BC years count down when moving from past to future thus 44 BC is after 250 BC. This makes counting in pre-Christian era dates difficult

True, the after and before stuff. Explain why it is not false that it is difficult and why it would be less difficult to deal with a transition Before Holocene Era to Holocene Era, or the statement will be deleted. Jclerman 16:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Is this a question? There are not as many dates before holocene era in history. Even using ab urbe condita dating would help a lot. Anyway, before holocene era we could use the Pleistocene Era and have later years with higher numbers again. The reason why Holocene Era is more useful than Neogene Era: less digits in the current year (26012006 "Neogene Era" ;-). --Hokanomono ✉ 05:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Replaced difficult and complicated in statements above with "more complicated than HE". To expand a little: Obviously it is possible to calculated date ranges across the BC/AD divide but it is more complicated than in the HE calendar. For example, if you were asked the question "how many years did the Han Dynasty endure?", which calculation is the easier: (1) 206 BC–AD 220 (2) 9795-10220 HE?

I find easier (1) than (2). In (1) I perform 206+220-1, which I can do mentally. In (2) I am confronted with the operation you quote: 9795-10220, which (a) gives a negative number as result, and (b) I can't do mentally. Jclerman 17:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

As regards the difficulty of Before/After Holocene; I'd go further than Hokanomono and state that there are no historical events before the commencement of the HE so there are no dates to worry about.--Oscar Bravo 12:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

IMHO I wouldn't dare making such absolute statements without the support of solid sources, or a dose of IMHO prefixes ;-) Jclerman 17:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More T or F ?

<<Conversion to Holocene from Gregorian can be achieved simply by prefixing the year with a "1".>> says the article.

As an exercise apply this rule to the dates AD 5, AD 15, AD 25. They are separated by equal intervals, equal to 10.

Conversion using the rule gives 15 HE, 115 HE, 125 HE. They are separated by unequal intervals, which are 100 and 110.

Jclerman 17:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha ha! Good point. I've fixed it ;-)--Oscar Bravo 12:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this could be easily solved in the following manner

• 2006 AD = 12006 HE = 1-2006 HE (written in this manner to make things easier)
• 1776 AD = 11776 HE = 1-1776 HE
• 476 AD = 10476 HE = 1-0476 HE (AD 1 would be 1-0001)
• 753 BC = 9248 HE = 9248 HE
• 20,000 BC = 9999 BHE?

This system would minimize the transition and the prefix could even be dropped in common usage, although officially the year would stil be 12006. Also perhaps the religous people could accept the "1" prefix as keeping religous signifigance - "1" years being "years of our Lord". Wishful thinking perhaps. --Uthar Wynn v2.0 02:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Let's convert the oldest Americans

The Clovis Barrier [1] dated as 13,500 years Before Present. Such date is clearly before (i.e., older than) the origin of Cesare's time scale. Then, the Clovis Barrier converts to 1549 years before the Holocene calendar's beginning. So it's been proposed to express such a before date as 1549 BC where now BC means Before Cesare. And the oldest American site, in Chile, would then date to some 2,500 BC. And so will many other pre Clovis-Barrier sites. Jclerman 16:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't confuse historical dating (1066, Battle of Hastings) with geological or paleontological dating (65 MYA, Cretaceous-boundary event). The latter is conventionally represented in "years ago" or "years before present" since it is tedious to add and subtract the 2006 year offset and, in any case, leads to false accuracy (dating the Clovis Barrier to 1549 BHE implies it can be dated +/- 1 year which is obviously not the case. Using 13,500 YA, implies an accuracy of around a century which is much more reasonable).

• Or just use PE (Pleistocene Era.) Problem solved. Zazaban 05:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

There's an apocryphal tale that a curator at the Museum of Natural History in London used to go around telling visitors that a particular dinosaur skeleton was 75 million and six years old. When asked how he could be so precise, he replied that when he started at the museum, he was told it was 75 million years old. And since he'd been working there for six years...--Oscar Bravo 12:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

1. The offset is not 2006. See definition of Before Present as used in dating.
2. Dates are given with a stated +/-. Their precision is not left to interpretation of the number of significant figures, for a good reason.
3. That story might be apocryphal, but I witnessed many similar oral and written interpretations when handing out lab results to archaeo- and paleo-experts.

Jclerman 03:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)