Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar
- ISBN-10
- 0471404217
- ISBN-13
- 9780471404217
- Series
- Marking Time
- Category
- Science
- Pages
- 432
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2000-12-25
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Author
- Duncan Steel
Description
"If you lie awake worrying about the overnight transition from December 31, 1 b.c., to January 1, a.d. 1 (there is no year zero), then you will enjoy Duncan Steel's Marking Time."--American Scientist "No book could serve as a better guide to the cumulative invention that defines the imaginary threshold to the new millennium."--Booklist A Fascinating March through History and the Evolution of the Modern-Day Calendar . . . In this vivid, fast-moving narrative, you'll discover the surprising story of how our modern calendar came about and how it has changed dramatically through the years. Acclaimed author Duncan Steel explores each major step in creating the current calendar along with the many different systems for defining the number of days in a week, the length of a month, and the number of days in a year. From the definition of the lunar month by Meton of Athens in 432 b.c. to the roles played by Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, and Isaac Newton to present-day proposals to reform our calendar, this entertaining read also presents "timely" tidbits that will take you across the full span of recorded history. Find out how and why comets have been used as clocks, why there is no year zero between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1, and why for centuries Britain and its colonies rang in the New Year on March 25th. Marking Time will leave you with a sense of awe at the haphazard nature of our calendar's development. Once you've read this eye-opening book, you'll never look at the calendar the same way again.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2020-11-24
- 512 pages
- Paperback
- Yale University Press
-
- 2020-04-28
- 352 pages
- Paperback
- Harvard University Press
Similar books
-
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
By Nicole R. FleetwoodThe impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art.
-
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
By Nicole R. FleetwoodMarking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
-
Marking Time
By Elizabeth Jane HowardThree young girls yearn for the freedom they believe adulthood will confer upon them in this tale of struggle and sacrifice, love and loss, as a new generation of Cazalets makes itself heard.
-
Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution
By Joel FaflakMarking Time reveals how Romantic and post-Romantic configurations of historical, socio-cultural, scientific, and philosophical transformation continue to exert a profound influence on critical and cultural thought.
-
Marking Time: Collecting Watches and Thinking about Time
By Michael KordaSee Power reserve indicator s Sand glass , 1 Season display , 82 Selvyt , 170 Silberstein , Alain , 106 , 127 Sky - chart display , 82 Speedmaster Professional , 30 , 72 Stainless steel watches , 156 Star Calibre 2000 , 82 , 84 ...
-
A Brief History of Timekeeping
By Chad OrzelFor those interested in science, technology, or history, or anyone who’s ever wondered about the instruments that divide our days into moments: the time you spend reading this book may fly, and it is certain to be well spent.
-
Marking Time
By Marie ForceThe Treading Water Series, Book 2 MARKING TIME continues the story begun in TREADING WATER as Clare Harrington begins a new life.
-
Melancholy Drift: Marking Time in Chinese Cinema
By Jean MaThis book is a timely demonstration of the key roles played by Chinese auteurs in shaping the new face of world cinema today and an important contribution to scholarship both within and beyond the field of transnational Chinese cinemas-- ...
-
Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia
By Andreas HuyssenIn this new collection of essays on memory and amnesia in the postmodern world, cultural critic Andreas Huyssen considers how nationalism, literature, art, politics, and the media are obsessed with the past.
-
Marking Time
By April WhiteSeventeen-year-old tagger Saira Elian can handle anything...a mother who mysteriously disappears, a stranger who stalks her around London, and even the noble English Grandmother who kicked Saira and her mother out of the family.