On 22 July 2017 at 14:08, Paul Gilmartin <[email protected]> wrote:
> How many digits for the year? Geologists routinely discuss 4500000000 BCE; > astrophysicists 13700000000 BCE; cosmologists ponder 10**100 CE. Does > this argue for a variable-length format?\ More likely a floating point format of some sort. > I deplore "BP" (Before the present). Scientists who use it have no faith in > the durability of their work. It's appropriate only in certain contexts, such > as "Radiocarbon dating has limited accuracy earlier than 10,000 BP." I don't see historians or archaeologists using it. It does make sense if one considers the existence of human civilization as a mere blip in the time the Earth (let alone the whole universe) has been around. Will scientists in the year 2,017,000 care if Newton published the Principia in 1687 or 11687? Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
