4 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2021–2024score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Recommended as an entertaining and well-explained account of why our calendar looks the way it does.
Historia Civilis tells the story of 46 BCE, the 445-day year in which Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar. It covers the political context, including the civil war, Cato and Cicero.
“Historia Civilis has a great video explaining how Caeser used the longest year to his advantage in war” (HN, 2024)
The Longest Year in Human History (46 B.C.E.) - [this video] gets into the "why the year we have is designed the way it is" ... though it takes 22 minutes to get to that part. It wasn't really better as the 30 * 12 + 5 approach needed manual application of the + 5... which is what the new calendar was trying to avoid.
Explains why the year is designed as it is, after a long lead-in.
I didn't appreciate until recently that the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar. Like not by some forgotten technocrats incidentally during his time, but Julius Caesar himself as a subject matter expert, as a side-project. With consultation, certainly, but by his initiative, from long-standing engagement with the problem in one of his early jobs from long before he was a main character of the Roman story. Digestable and entertaining (fragment of a) video on the topic: [this video]
Digestible, entertaining video on Julius Caesar designing the calendar.
Ha, a proof that by watching YouTube videos you learn something. This was covered by one of my favorite series on YouTube. Here is the particular video: [this video]
From a favorite YouTube series covering this exact topic.
> Why don’t we use TAI or GPS time for generic world wide coordinated computer time? I think that is valid as long as systems are talking to systems, but the interface with the world (when things are happening in the world) is where the solar day or year is still relevant. I'm sort of joking, but watching Interstellar made me kinda cringe about what interstellar gravity wells is going to do to time-keeping, even if we use something like an atomic clock to keep time. We will slowly get better at this until we discover something new, but the switch doesn't mean anything until the costs outweigh the change. And the leap second is going look like 46-45 BCE[1]. [1] - [this video]
Cited as precedent for calendar adjustments like leap seconds.
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