Talk:Holocene calendar

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[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)
I would dispute the claim that the calendar contains a ten day shift. The non-proleptic Gregorian calendar only begins in 1582, and thus contains no shift; the proleptic Gregorian calendar continues back arbitrarily and contains no shift either. Nor does the Julian calendar (proleptic or not). So it seems that no commonplace calendar contains a shift. What really happened in 1582 was not a 10 day shift in a calendar, but a shift to a different calendar. (Now, one could define a "civil" calendar, which is proleptic Julian up to 1582, and non-proleptic Gregorian thereafter, or in some jurisdictions the year is different, and indeed such a calendar has a 10 day or more shift -- but why say we are using such a beast, when we can simply say that we use a different calendar system [Julian/Gregorian] for different dates instead?) But in any case, HE is a system of chronology, not a calendar system -- it defines the numbering of years, but not the precise boundaries between the years nor the subdivisions within them. i.e. 12008 HE does not uniquely identify a region of time, without also specifying which calendar (Julian? Gregorian?), which timezone (UTC? New York local time?), which time standard (UTC, TAI?), or even which relativistic frame of reference.... although the result of any of these choices is irrelevant within a certain margin of error --SJK (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2008 (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)


[edit] Religious basis

Isn't this just as much based on Christianity as the traditional BC/AD or BCE/CE calendar? Nothing particularly noteworthy happened, that we know of at least, in the year 1 HE. It's still based on the traditional (inaccurate) date of Jesus' birth, with just an arbitrary 10,000 years added Nik42 04:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't argue with rationality here. The reason people want to change the system is not that the current system is biased but that it's not following THEIR bias. I'm a Discordian and for me the current year is 3173 YOLD, but I have no problem with calling it 2007 AD or p.Chr.n. or n.Chr. or whatever.
That there is no year zero doesn't really make a difference. Bump up all years by one and call 1 AD "0 AD" and you have the problem fixed. Most pre-modern history is chronologically doubtful anyway, so you might as well insert a year and pretend it had always been there.
Of course 44 BC is after 450 BC, but that problem can not be solved. Just pretend BC means "negative AD" and work from there. The only fixed point in time we could use as reference that will never require counting backwards for earlier events is the Big Bang and the jury's still out on when the hell that one was.
The reason 10,000 BC is considered a non-biased alternative point of reference is that it's the approximate first occurence of anything resembling modern human civilisation -- it's rather easy to see how such a tentative fact (archeology is not an accurate science, though I agree that it is unlikely we'll find any evidence for past civilisations if we haven't found it yet) is a bit risky, but at least it's not religiously biased. If you want to make it less biased (it is after all based on a biased system), add some noise and make 1 HE correspond to, say, 9,873 BC -- this is arbitrary enough to be mostly unrelated to any real or assumed historical event (though you might find one if you look hard enough).
Alternatively, use the present year (2007), substract an even number from it so you reach a place somewhat close to the point of reference (2007 AD - 12000 years is somewhere around 9,993 BC) and take that year as 1 HE. If nothing religious happened the present year, you got yourself an unbiased point of reference there. — Ashmodai (talk · contribs) 16:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I know 10000 years before 1 AD is arbitrary, and that there must be a more accurate "start of the holocene" date than that, and I'd be happy to switch if we get it down to a single year. It does just reinforce the Xian system this way. JoshNarins (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
When it's before recorded history, we're kinda outta luck. Zazaban (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removed AfD

i have removed AfD for this article because the Holocene Calendar has been struck from the list for discussion on the deletion talk page. this article was lumped in with a slew of other reform calendars and the consensus is now to focus on the symmetry454 reform instead.Some thing 19:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No Sense

"Holocene Calendar" is stil a Cristian-based Calendar. Why bother?

Sadly, because Cesare couldn't calculate time intervals across the AD/BC divide. He show it in a blunder he made in an article in Nature. Jclerman 20:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] astronomical year numbering has a year 0, see it in the wikipedia, emiliani's system has no year 0

and you don't add 1 Jclerman 22:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Holocene calendar or Jōmon calendar (Japan) uses a dating system almost identical to astronomical year numbering but adds 10,000, placing year zero at the beginning of the Holocene Epoch (HE) or J

Incorrect statement about year zero. Jclerman 22:56, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Years of today are transformed by simply adding 1 before the year (ie: 12007).

  • 1. Such operation is not an addition.
  • 2. It makes no sense for years AD 1 to AD 999.
Jclerman 22:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
it seems from what youre saying that you have not read the full article which i will quote "There is no year zero as 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1." is listed in the 'problems of the Gregorian calendar' section that ceasar's calendar corrects. also if you look at examples of the calendar it does have a 'year zero'. and the line "Years of today are transformed by simply adding 1 before" is not a mathmatical formula it is writers trick for "years of today" not 2000 years ago. honestly i am wondering if this is an issue of mistranslation.Some thing 23:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
The "year zero" is, calendrically speaking, the one that is not intercalated between AD 1 and 1 BC. "A year zero" as you intend is a problem of mistranslation between number theory (origin of counting sets) and colloquial usage. And there are many historical dates between AD 1 and AD 999 which colloquially adding 1 transforms them in 11 HE and 1999 HE. Jclerman 23:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
ok for sake of negotiation instead of using term 'the year Zero' i will use 'a year 0'. however i would like to note that the article 'astronomical year counting' says that it does have 'year 0' and links to the article 'year zero'. as for the issue of year 6 becoming year 16, please carefully read the sentance. the year 6 is NOT considered a "year of today". the point of that sentance is to show the convenience that ceasar saught. shall we say "the current year" instead of "years today" i think that remove confusion yes? Some thing 23:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] almost identical to astronomical year numbering

is an imprecise statement, while based on the Gregorian calendar is an exact one. Jclerman 23:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

With all do respect, the Gregorian years have NO year Zero. The Holocene Years DO Have a Zero. The Gregorian statement IS more Exact but none the less, completely WRONG.
Deja vu. Read above sections 1.1, 1.2, 2, and 5 to 8. In 8 notice the difference between "the year zero" and "a year zero". Jclerman 23:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
ok, sorry about all this miscommunication. i hope the last changes i've made were satisfactory. Some thing 01:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citation for 'Japanese motivation' section

Please provide a source as per WP:SOURCE for the Japanese motivation section. Thank you. Mumun 無文 20:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I was about to ask the same thing. I had never heard of this concerning Japan before stumbling on this page, so you really have me curious there Aria28 10:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
i have done some research into the wiki origins of the jomon info, which i added to this article from a japanese era names section. user:kurtan created both the 'jomon era' addition to the japanese era names and the holocene calendar article at around the same time. they unfortunately did not provide citations for the 'jomon era'. though their bio states that they have a master of science from tokyo, so i'm not doubting it. but kurtan hasnt edited since 4 July 2007, to clarify my request for a source. also whisper phone has had some effect on that info since their original post. i'm going to make the appropriate changes to fix the misinformation which i helped propagate.Some thing 16:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I've visited the japanese era names article and they do precise that this Jomon count has not been officially recognized and is only used in academia so far, which would explain why I couldn't even find trace of this in Japanese sources on the Jomon period (I suppose they wouldn't use that count in publications meant also for the general public). I imagine that means we'll have to trust user:kurtan on this Aria28 10:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
The Jōmon count section in Japanese era name was created by an anonymous editor 13 January 2006 (according to its history). It was tagged "citation needed" on 6 July 2007 and deleted 24 August 2007. It originally stated that it based on "scholar's notes", hence it was unpublished. By definition this is original research which is not allowed on Wikipedia. Since adequate notice has been given, I am removing it for that reason. — Joe Kress 06:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homo floresiensis

if, at some point, Homo floresiensis is proven to be a homo-sapien then "Aprox. time last relatives of Humans go extinct" should probably be replaced with "aprox. beginning of the holocene epoch." or end of ice age, the 'Vela supernova' or any number of proximal events. Some thing 23:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Negative numbers and zero vs Before Holocene Era

Are we assuming that years prior to 1 HE are numbered using a system similar to the Gregorian calendar's CE and BCE (or AD and BC) system, so that the year before 1 HE is 1 BHE and (before 1 HE) the year number decreases when going forwards in time?:

3 BHE; 2 BHE; 1 BHE; 1 HE; 2 HE

Or are they numbered using a zero and negative numbers (like how everything else in the world is generally numbered nowadays)?:

-2 HE; -1 HE; 0 HE; 1 HE; 2 HE

The Gregorian calendar's lack of zero and backwards counting for years prior to “1” are probably the greatest cause of confusion when using it, so if the calendar system is to be reformed, those contrivances seem like good candidates for removal.

Remember that these contrivances were invented in Europe before negative numbers had become commonplace there. Note also that the Holocene Era's definition of zero is intended to produce positive numbers in the vast majority of useful cases; that the Fahrenheit temperature scale's definition of zero was chosen similarly, so that everything Fahrenheit could practically measure would produce a positive number; and that temperatures on the Fahrenheit scale colder than 0 °F are always represented by negative numbers. --Greg K Nicholson 09:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What before 0 HE would one need to date with a definite year? -Acjelen 15:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
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 16:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you have a cite for that? The name is silly, by the way, if that's what it stands for, since that makes no sense (hint: note how long ago that is). mike4ty4 00:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Citation: [2]
  • No sense name: pre Clovis-Barrier?
Jclerman 14:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean "Before Julius Caesar", Jclerman? That is an interesting alternative to "Before Christ", though an entire century early. I still can't picture any event before 0 HE that would require a specific year designation. --- Acjelen (talk) 19:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)