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Probaway - Time

Makes Dating and Measuring Time Between All Events Precise and Easy.

© 2005 by Charles Scamahorn

Our current Gregorian calendar, with its various leap year corrections, is accurate and easy to use but it creates problems, when documenting BC dates, because it requires counting backwards and skipping over the year zero AD. The Probaway—Time dating system eliminates those problems by adding a number 1 to the left of a modern date. That small change permits older BC events to be documented with positive numbers. Without changing our current calendar much it eliminates the problems associated with backwards BC counting. Using the system is easy for people of all language groups and for computers as the units of time are always numbers—arranged from large to small from left to right. It is a calendar for all people and is uncoupled from starting at one groups special event. As luck would have it, the calendar's zero point is very near the event initiating the melting of the last ice age which permitted the advent of agriculture and civilization.

Dates that are documented using the Probaway—Time system are identified by special letters placed after them instead of the usual AD or BC. When a local time is used, the date should be followed with a small letter c, which stands for local, as the use of the other identifying letters such as t is reserved for dates adjusted to the 24-hour Universal Time clock. Thus, a letter t, c or u (u defined below) usually replaces the AD. If the date isn’t followed by any letter, the context must define its use. When hours\minutes\seconds . decimal seconds are needed use the following format ( =12\12\12.34 ) appended to the date before the coda letter t. As you will find explained below a date followed by a small letter u is exactly the same as our current Universal Time Standard, zeroed at the Gregorian date in Greenwich, England. Thus for daily civil use this system would require no adaptation what-so-ever in England.

Now is the Time to Quit Counting Backwards.

In the old system the day following December 31, 331 BC is a seemingly smaller January 1, 330 BC. However, in the Probaway—Time system those ancient dates would be written normally the same as any modern date and the date following 9670-12-31t would advance to 9671-01-01t.

After we Convert we can Quit Counting Backwards and Quit Converting.

To convert a BC-year to a t-date, subtract the BC-year from 10,001 and append t. To convert a pre-10,001 t-date to a BC-date subtract 10,001 from the t-date and append BC. The folks who set up the old calendar neglected to use a zero which accounts for the one peculiar-year discrepancy when timing BC dates. This error generating effect is built into our current Gregorian calendar but it is eliminated from the Probaway-Time calendar.

Easily Measure the Time Lapsed Between Two Widely Separated Events.

Let me illustrate a use of the system by comparing the time lapsed between two very special events. The first event is the only documented conjunction of all of the planets; including the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter, which occurred on 8048-03-03=08\00t and the second event is the first footstep on the Moon, 11969-07-21=02\56\20t. They occurred 3,921 years apart--but as you can see--you can easily calculate the time lapsed to a much greater precision--to the second--if you wish.

How to do: Month Counts, Day Counts and Second Counts.

Sometimes it is useful to refer to a specific month in a year. It can be done quite nicely by truncating a date to a two-digit month-count number. For example the first month in 1996 AD may be written

11996-01t.

And sometimes one wants to know a year’s day-count; it can be done with three-digits so the first day of

1996 AD can be written

11996-001t

The third second of 1996 AD could be written
11996-01-01=00\00\03t.

But, sometimes it is desirable not to refer to months or to days but just to a particular second of a year. The usual number of seconds in a year is about 31,557,600--that is eight digits--and therefore a year followed by eight digits signifies that it is a second count referencing some specific second in a year. Thus the 4th second of 1996 AD could be rendered--

11996=00,000,004t.

Remember to retain the correct number of zeros at the front of these numbers to distinguish between a month-count, a day-count and a second count; also be careful to use the correct terminating letter to fix the year truncation properly--as defined below.

Some Unusual but Useful Truncations of the Probaway-Time System are Now Defined.

The following specialized variations use the same basic system, ‘zeroed’ exactly 2,000 years before Universal Time 2,000 AD. For dating extremely deep Cosmological times use an Italic Capital T; it sets the base date 10,000,000,002,000 years before 2,000 AD. Use the Roman Capital T for geologic times; it sets the base date to 10,000,002,000 years before 2,000 AD. Use a small italic t for dating anthropological times; it sets the base date to 10,002,000 years before 2,000 AD. Use the lower case roman t for historical times; it sets the base date to 12,000 years before 2,000AD. The alternate ( T T t t ) endings are simply a standardized notation for truncating the dates to what the user finds most useful. To truncate even more use u’s ( U U u u ) to eliminate one zero, v’s ( V V v v ) to eliminate two zeros, ( w ) to eliminate three zeros and ( x ) to eliminate four zeros from the ( T T t t ) base dates. The date 9,430,002,000T is the beginning of the Cambrian era.

An Example of Adjustable Base Dates.

Alternative renditions of exactly the same day of time, the first day of the first month of 1996 AD, could be truncated to any of the following; depending upon the need of the user: