Calendars & Time Reckoning - Dr. Florin Diacu

Oct. 11, 2006 - IS THIS THE YEAR 2006? - Calendars and Time-Reckoning from Antiquity to the Present - Dr. Florin Diacu

To know what year this is, we must understand how calendars work. Civilizations have used various time-reckoning systems, all of which have been based on celestial motions. But measuring time over the centuries is far from easy. Consequently some contemporary scientists challenge our common beliefs about historical events and claim that this is not the year 2006. They think we could be wrong by as much as a millennium. Are they right? This talk will present some basic ideas about calendars and the difficulties they pose to the understanding of historical chronology.

About the speaker: Florin Diacu is a mathematics professor at the University of Victoria, an expert in celestial mechanics, and the author of "The Lost Millennium: History's Timetables Under Siege" a book recently published by Knopf Canada.