There Comes A Time

New and Improved Way to Measure Time

Posted on July 8, 2024 by pauldelancey

Invented .0001000634 MYA

It is high time to resolve the swirling, seething controversy over what to call our years, AD or CE. The two camps remain armed to the teeth or seem to be in no mood for compromise.

For longest time the year 1963 was simply 1963. If we felt the need to tart it up a bit, we called it year 1963 AD. Here, AD is an abbreviation for the Latin words, Anno Domini, or the Year of our Lord. 44 years before year 1 was 44 BC. Here BC is an abbreviation for Before Christ.

But not everyone is a Christian or even okay with dating our times with BC and AD. So many people starting referring to BC as BCE and AD and CE, where BCE means Before Common Era and CE represents Common Era

But these appendages to the years can offend Christians or old-school historians. And this nomenclature doesn’t even change the numbers.

Bah! I will solve everything. We can all agree that if the time is now 4:15pm, then 12 noon is 14,400 SA (seconds ago) and that it is also .0000000005 MYA (million years ago.)
MYA is a time scheme used by archeologists, so it is a system we are all familiar with.

And here it is

MYA (Millions of Years Ago)

*This whole time scheme and table is based on July 8, 2024, 4:15pm being time zero. Please note; all numbers goe up by one second every second, and the MYAs** increase by a corresponding amount.

Years Called

Year SA or Seconds Ago* MYA** Important Event

AD or CE

2024 0 0.0000000000 Now – 4:15p
2024 14,400 0.0000000005 Today, High noon
2024 619,200 0.0000000196 Last Taco Tuesday

2024 5,551,200 0.0000001759 Cinco de Mayo

2024 12,463,200 0.0000003949 Valentine’s Day

2023 21,603,600 0.0000006846 Halloween
1945 2,498,335,200 0.0000791675 VE Day
1924 3,157,761,600 0.0001000634 First cheeseburger made

1918 3,334,237,200 0.0001056556 Armistice Day
1865 5,019,314,400 0.0001590525 Juneteenth
1648 11,856,340,800 0.0003757048 Treaty of Westphalia

1492 16,780,363,200 0.0005317376 Columbus Lands in New World
1066 30,223,706,400 0.0009577315 Battle of Hastings
476 48,856,708,800 0.0015481757 Rome falls to Goths

1 63,844,236,000 0.0020231018 Baby Jesus

BC or BCE

44 65,260,526,400 0.0020679813 Beware the Ides of March

753 87,640,999,200 0.0027771757 Founding of Rome
2,600 145,927,886,400 0.0046241757 First 4-sided Pyramid Built

176,000 5,618,015,726,400 0.1780241757 Ogg the Neanderthal

3,200,000 101,048,195,448,000 3.2020240908 Lucy of Olduvai Gorge

63,000,000 1,988,192,672,856,000 63.0020240087 End of the Dinosaurs

As you can see, I had too much time on my hands. Hee, hee.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: science, There Comes A Time | Tags: AD, B&C, Battle of Hastings, BCE, CE, cheeseburger, Common Era, dinosaurs, Great Pyramid of Giza, Ides of March, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, Neanderthal, paleiontologists, Rome, taco Tuesday | Leave a comment

I Solve the Time Zones Problem

Posted on May 30, 2024 by pauldelancey

Away with time zone confusion

How many times has this happened to you? It’s nine o’clock. You’ve had a satisying day at work. You’ve made a wonderful dinner and cleaned up afterwards. You’re happy with your life. You’re happy with the world. You want to reach out and contact an old friend. Why not call Jacques Bonhomme? But wait, he lives in Paris! What time is it in Paris? Does anyone even know? Even Parisians might not. Is he at work? Is he at home? If so, is he sleeping?

Wouldn’t it be nice to know? Would it be easy if it were simply the same time everywhere? Then if it were 8:49 pm, as it is now in my beloved Poway, it would be 8:49 pm in Paris. Merveilleux, c’est trop facile.

Now, I can call Jacques knowing that he’ll be at home and awake.

I know the benefits of having a universal time are immense, but what place shall we use for the universal time?

Poway, California

Why Poway? I live there. It’s my idea. I call dibs. There, it’s settled.

Will this brilliant idea meet with universal approval?

Probably not at first. I go to bed around 10 pm. So will Jacques, because 10 pm is the time most people drift off to sleep. However, the Sun will just be coming up at 10 pm in France under the new Poway Universal Time System (PUTS.)

Jacques and billions of other people need some time (hee, hee see what I did there) to adapt to seeing the moon overhead at lunchtime. Yacht races and other fol de rol will become particularly challenging, not to mention archery contests.

Yet there is hope the teething period with the onset of PUTS will be short and easier than expected.

Afterall, a polar day at the South Pole lasts six months. And you never hear the scientists there explaining.

PUTS starts tomorrow. I hope you find adjustment easy. I know I will.

I see a Nobel Prize in my future.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.