xml-dev - Re: year

[Martin Bryan <mtbryan@sgml.u-net.com>]

Steve
> Astronomy has the answer: Julian epoch + days since the epoch.
> Some info:
>
> http://www.ida.liu.se/~TDDB28/mtrl/lab/astro_coord.sv.shtml
>
Don't tempt me at this time of year, please.

We had great fun researching ways of describing time back in 1996
(Gregorian) for HyTime. Of course you can use the Hebrew calenday, the
Chinese one, the Moslem one, the Japanese one (based on month's since the
assession of the last emperor).......

We ended up with the Astronomer Royal here in the UK suggesting we stick to
UTC as anything else is not going to be globally acceptable. (Astronomers
base their timings on sidreal time, not on apparent elapsed time on our
speck of a planet, which is what all our local calenders are based on. And
then there are lightyears, which are measurements of distance, not time!)
Seems that what we need is to record time relative to a known time piece, an
atomic clock located at a stable fixed point on this planet. (Ideally at the
place least affected by plate tectonics.)

Now how does web time equate to lightyears?

Happy Christmas

Martin Bryan