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On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Vernon Hamberg
<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But then I thought, OK, you have that number, and you can use
Values(Julian_Day(current date)) to get the number of days since the start
of the Julian date calendar - not named for the emperor, rather for Julius
Caesar Scaliger, father of French-Italian astronomer Joseph Scaliger.
That's a common misconception. It's clear that *Joseph* Scaliger
worked extensively with dates and had a significant influence on date
calculations. His father definitely did not. And Joseph didn't coin
the term to honor his father:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day#History
I'll quote the relevant passage here:
===begin quote===
Although many references say that the Julian in "Julian Period" refers
to Scaliger's father, Julius Scaliger, in the introduction to Book V
of his Opus de Emendatione Temporum ("Work on the Emendation of Time")
he states, "Iulianum vocavimus: quia ad annum Iulianum dumtaxat
accomodata est", which translates more or less as "We have called it
Julian merely because it is accommodated to the Julian year." Thus
Julian refers to Julius Caesar, who introduced the Julian calendar in
46 BC.
===end quote===
Note that the book in question is *Joseph Scaliger's* own book!
So the "naive" thought that "Julian" refers to the Roman emperor,
because the Julian calendar is named after him, turns out to be
correct.
John Y.
midrange.com
