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From: philm@astroatc.UUCP (Phil Mason)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Julian Date/Day Number
Message-ID: <557@astroatc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Nov-87 15:21:49 EST
Article-I.D.: astroatc.557
Posted: Mon Nov  9 15:21:49 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Nov-87 20:42:28 EST
Reply-To: philm@astroatc.UUCP (Phil Mason)
Organization: Astronautics Technology Cntr, Madison, WI
Lines: 27
Keywords: Ceasar, Astronomy, Dates, Etc.


There has been a bit of discussion about the Julian Date/Day Number system.

A Julian Date (or Day Number) is the number of days since an event in Roman 
history.  Julius Ceasar, in addition to being a great military leader, was 
also a great calendar maker.  The Julian Date was a marker of a new era, 
not the day-to-day marking of time that the Romans used in their daily lives.
Julius also revamped the existing "mundane" Roman calendar to better reflect 
reality.  In fact, Julius' calendar is almost exactly what we use today, Pope
Gergory only tuned Julius' ( and his calendar making successor's ) work to 
take into account the small errors that were not originally accounted for.

Julian dates are used by astronomers to give a simple way of calculating the
intervals between dates.

If you think about it, Julian Dates make alot of sense in fixing dates and
intervals accurately especially when Western calendars have changed so many 
times over the last few millenia.  Julian dates have no 'Seasons', you don't
plant your crops or fix the holidays by them.  They have no purpose except
for interval taking.


-- 
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