Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13th Edition__
Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July 16, 1969, 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing a precise instant on the time line.
I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903?
Brian
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later became Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of their epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian calendar. The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This is because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations of the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries skipped 10 days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is also why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was called “Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a date in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox Christmas is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t change their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25, 1917 (which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because of the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what Sybase chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender brian@brie.com wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13th Edition__
Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July 16, 1969, 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing a precise instant on the time line.
I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903?
Brian
Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Sorry, minor correction. The October Revolution happened on November 7, 1917 Gregorian.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:58 Diego R. Martinez diego001@gmail.com wrote:
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later became Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of their epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian calendar. The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This is because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations of the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries skipped 10 days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is also why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was called “Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a date in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox Christmas is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t change their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25, 1917 (which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because of the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what Sybase chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender brian@brie.com wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13th Edition__
Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July 16, 1969, 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time,
representing
a precise instant on the time line.
I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903?
Brian
Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
I am just trying to envision the Pope sending a commission of astronomers. It feels very scientific.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 09:02:12PM -0700, Diego R. Martinez wrote:
Sorry, minor correction. The October Revolution happened on November 7, 1917 Gregorian.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:58 Diego R. Martinez <[1]diego001@gmail.com> wrote:
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later became Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of their epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian calendar. The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This is because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations of the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries skipped 10 days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is also why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was called “Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a date in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox Christmas is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t change their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25, 1917 (which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because of the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what Sybase chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender <[2]brian@brie.com> wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13th Edition__ > Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds > of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local > date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone > information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on > which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since > that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does > not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July 16, 1969, > 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing > a precise instant on the time line. I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903? Brian -- Brian Lavender [3]https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- [4]lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to [5]lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.comReferences
- mailto:diego001@gmail.com
- mailto:brian@brie.com
- https://www.brie.com/brian/
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Oh yeah! The Catholic Church during the Renaissance was the patron of a lot of scientists and astronomers in addition to artists. It’s not like the Church of today. Copernicus, for instance, held an administrative position called a “canon” in Poland that basically was mostly a sinecure and was more a patronage for his work in astronomy.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 21:12 Brian E. Lavender brian@brie.com wrote:
I am just trying to envision the Pope sending a commission of astronomers. It feels very scientific.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 09:02:12PM -0700, Diego R. Martinez wrote:
Sorry, minor correction. The October Revolution happened on November
7,
1917 Gregorian.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:58 Diego R. Martinez <[1]
diego001@gmail.com>
wrote:
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later became Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of
their
epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian
calendar.
The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This is because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations of the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries skipped
10
days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is
also
why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was called “Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a
date
in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox Christmas is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t change their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25, 1917 (which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because of the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what Sybase chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender <[2]brian@brie.com> wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13th Edition__ > Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds > of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local > date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone > information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on > which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since > that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does > not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July 16, 1969, > 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing > a precise instant on the time line. I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903? Brian -- Brian Lavender [3]https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- [4]lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to [5]lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.comReferences
- mailto:diego001@gmail.com
- mailto:brian@brie.com
- https://www.brie.com/brian/
- mailto:lug-nuts@bigbrie.com
- mailto:lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
-- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
I love this group! I think I learned more about Catholicism from you guys than I learned in the 12 years I attended Catholic schools as a kid. 😆
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026, 9:19 PM Diego R. Martinez diego001@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yeah! The Catholic Church during the Renaissance was the patron of a lot of scientists and astronomers in addition to artists. It’s not like the Church of today. Copernicus, for instance, held an administrative position called a “canon” in Poland that basically was mostly a sinecure and was more a patronage for his work in astronomy.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 21:12 Brian E. Lavender brian@brie.com wrote:
I am just trying to envision the Pope sending a commission of astronomers. It feels very scientific.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 09:02:12PM -0700, Diego R. Martinez wrote:
Sorry, minor correction. The October Revolution happened on November
7,
1917 Gregorian.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:58 Diego R. Martinez <[1]
diego001@gmail.com>
wrote:
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later
became
Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of
their
epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian
calendar.
The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to
the
Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This
is
because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations
of
the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries skipped
10
days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is
also
why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was
called
“Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a
date
in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox Christmas is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t change their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25, 1917 (which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because
of
the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what
Sybase
chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender <[2]brian@brie.com> wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13thEdition__
> Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds > of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local > date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone > information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (the day on > which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since > that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information, it does > not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July16,
1969, > 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing > a precise instant on the time line. I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903? Brian -- Brian Lavender [3]https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way isto
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- [4]lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to [5]lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.comReferences
- mailto:diego001@gmail.com
- mailto:brian@brie.com
- https://www.brie.com/brian/
- mailto:lug-nuts@bigbrie.com
- mailto:lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
-- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Glad you enjoyed it! To be honest, I only know this because I just *had* to know why it was that Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server started their epoch in 1753... and then I found out about the difference of the English calendar vs. the Gregorian calendar and how the English Protestants called it "Papist time."
On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 9:41 AM Bob R bob.dev.oak@gmail.com wrote:
I love this group! I think I learned more about Catholicism from you guys than I learned in the 12 years I attended Catholic schools as a kid. 😆
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026, 9:19 PM Diego R. Martinez diego001@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yeah! The Catholic Church during the Renaissance was the patron of a lot of scientists and astronomers in addition to artists. It’s not like the Church of today. Copernicus, for instance, held an administrative position called a “canon” in Poland that basically was mostly a sinecure and was more a patronage for his work in astronomy.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 21:12 Brian E. Lavender brian@brie.com wrote:
I am just trying to envision the Pope sending a commission of astronomers. It feels very scientific.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 09:02:12PM -0700, Diego R. Martinez wrote:
Sorry, minor correction. The October Revolution happened on
November 7,
1917 Gregorian.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:58 Diego R. Martinez <[1]
diego001@gmail.com>
wrote:
Some database systems, including the Sybase database that later
became
Microsoft SQL Server, use 1/1/1753 00:00:00 +0000 as the start of
their
epoch. The reason why this is is that 1753 is the first year in the English calendar that is fully coordinated with the Gregorian
calendar.
The English calendar has 11 missing days that were skipped from September 2 to September 14 to convert from the Julian calendar to
the
Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar was used from the days of Julius Caesar and measures the year at 365.25 days per year. But over the course of centuries, The calendar drifted by about 1 day over 128 years. This
is
because the mean solar tropical year is actually 365.2422 days. In 1582, this drift from the tropical year accumulated to 10 days. This caused Pope Gregory XIII to try to fix the calendar and he sent a commission of astronomers to redesign the calendar. The motivations
of
the Roman Catholic Church there were also to celebrate religious observances at the correct time. In 1582, Catholic countries
skipped 10
days.
Of course, this happened after the English reformation and a lot of folks called it “Papist time” in England. And this is why England didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 170 years later. This is
also
why George Washington’s Birthday is in different forms. One was
called
“Old Style” (which is the old Julian Calendar), and we also have a
date
in “New Style,” which was 11 days later.
The Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar by not recognizing the authority of the Pope. This is why Orthodox
Christmas
is later and Orthodox Easter is later. And the Russians didn’t
change
their calendar until after the October Revolution of October 25,
1917
(which happened on November 8th, 1917 in the rest of Europe because
of
the calendar drift!)
But yes. If we want an epoch, we could do a lot worse than what
Sybase
chose.
On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 20:19 Brian E. Lavender <[2]brian@brie.com> wrote:
Quote from __Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features, 13thEdition__
> Now let us turn from absolute time to human time. There are two kinds > of human time in the Java API, local date/time and zoned time. Local > date/time has a date and/or time of day, but no associated time zone > information. An example of a local date is June 14, 1903 (theday
on > which Alonzo Church, inventor of the lambda calculus, was born). Since > that date has neither a time of day nor time zone information,it
does > not correspond to a precise instant of time. In contrast, July16,
1969, > 09:32:00 EDT (the launch of Apollo 11) is a zoned date/time, representing > a precise instant on the time line. I thought that was interesting. So, the Epoch perhaps ought to be June 14, 1903? Brian -- Brian Lavender [3]https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way isto
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. Andthe
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- [4]lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to [5]lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.comReferences
- mailto:diego001@gmail.com
- mailto:brian@brie.com
- https://www.brie.com/brian/
- mailto:lug-nuts@bigbrie.com
- mailto:lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
-- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com
-
Bob R -
Brian E. Lavender -
Diego R. Martinez