Duncan Steel • Mar 20, 2019 •
We are generally habituated to using the Greenwich meridian as the global standard for mapping and time-keeping, despite it being only 135 years since its adoption. As I show here, if the Catholic Church had adopted in 1582 a more-precise calendar in terms of year length then a natural prime meridian results, in a location that might appear surprising. Read More
Duncan Steel • Dec 31, 2018 •
New Year is coming in a few hours (as I write), at least on the calendar used as the global standard. Not everyone counts years in quite the same way, though. It takes most of us a week or two to get used to the number of the year having changed. In the days when we still wrote … Read More
Duncan Steel • Dec 19, 2018 •
The date of Christmas is a matter many find confusing, and yet the adopted anniversary is easy to understand if you follow through the history, astronomy and human biology that are involved. Why is the Nativity commemorated on December 25th, when it is clear Jesus was not actually born on that date? And how can a year be termed “Before … Read More