I saw his point. "Right, everyone would think that. Only because there's a year 0 in astronomical but not Gregorian, -3113 is 3114 B.C. instead of 3113 B.C. All the B.C. years are going to be one off from what you'd expect."

"Exactly, and it causes so many problems. It's hard to keep things straight even when you've spent as much time with these different calendars as I have. Sometimes I still get it backwards, thinking that 2000 B.C. is -2001, when really 2001 B.C. is -2000, or 2000 B.C. is -1999. Wait, did I get that right?"

"I don't know, I already forgot what you said." We both laughed at how we'd managed to confuse ourselves.

"Anyway, you get the gist of it. Unless we can update all the historical records and purge the B.C. convention from our brains, converting between the different calendars is always going to cause confusion. Now you can see why it's so hard to interpret dates that were written by people who may or may not have even been aware of the issue."

"Yeah, like the midnight thing," I said. "Someone will say that something starts Friday at midnight. And while I know that technically means the beginning of the day, one minute past Thursday at 11:59 PM, I also know that most people think it means the end of the day, one minute past Friday at 11:59 PM. Hopefully I can ask them for clarification, but if not, then I have to make a judgment call as to which midnight they really meant."

Next: Page 89
Current: Page 88
Previous: Page 87
Table of Contents: Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York


Privacy Policy