The Earth Epic Calendar was developed by Haven McClure of Madison, Wisconsin, USA to address the fact that the vast majority of calendars do not acknowledge the millions and billions of years of Earth history that precede human existence. This calendar also institutes reforms influenced by aspects of other calendars—specifically the Solar Hijri (Iran and Afghanistan), Maya and World Season (proposed by Isaac Asimov) calendars to make improvements over the Gregorian Calendar in the areas of accuracy and ease of planning.
Older calendars, such as the Jewish Calendar and the Byzantine Calendar, postulated a creation date sometime in the 6th millenium BC, and in Europe, the creation of the Earth was assumed to be that time until the 1600s CE. The length of Earth history was not well understood until the 20th century.
While the Geologic Time Scale does acknowledge this, such a time scale is used primarily by geologists and other Earth scientists, and its time scales are based on climate and geological events and stratigraphy as opposed to actual units of time.
It can be argued that the average person struggles to grasp the miniscule amount of time humans have lived on Earth in comparison to the entirety of Earth history. Even when aided by visuals, the quantity of one million--much less one billion--is arguably very hard for the average person to fully comprehend. And given that most calendars rarely are concerned with numbers higher than ten thousand, it could be argued that such calendars present us with a distorted perception of time, overemphasizing the past one to six thousand years—a little more than one millionth of the entire history of the Earth. Given the fact that decisions being made today could potentially undo millions of years of Earth evolution, a sense of scale could help give us perspective on the decisions we make and hopefully help us make better decisions about our Earth.
To address this, the Earth Epic Calendar seeks to bridge this gap by using mostly scales of one hundred (a quantity produced by a ten-by-ten grid) to separate units of time. The calendar also sees to link these units of time to developments significant to a human understanding of Earth history. This would help educate people about Earth history in the process. The calendar's reliance on units of one hundred make calculations easier.
The Epic Time Scales
In addition to the time units of day, year, and century that most calendars have, the Earth Epic Calendar adds three larger units.
|
Unit of Time |
Length of time | Related to other units |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 25,000 years | 250 Centuries |
| Genesis | 2,500,000 years | 100 Ages |
| Eon | 250,000,000 years | 100 Geneses |
While it may seem counter-intuitive to use multiples of 250 to calculate these large time units, there are good reasons to do so.
For example, one Eon ago corresponds roughly to when the first dinosaurs appeared on Earth, and two Eons ago corresponds to the Cambrian Explosion while one Genesis corresponds roughly to when the genus Homo first appeared on Earth. This 100:1 relationship in time scale between the evolution of the dinosaurs and Homo helps us better understand our relationship with the Earth better. With the Earth being approximately 4.54 billion years old (give or take 40 million years), this translates to 18 Eons. It is also noteworthy that one Eon is roughly the equivalent of a Galactic Year" that is, the length of time our Solar System takes to orbit the Milky Way.
The Age time unit has its own significance. Twenty five thousand years (or 250 centuries) is close to an Earth cycle known as the Axial Precession. This phenomenon, discovered by the ancient Greeks and possible the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Mayans as well, represents a slow change in the position of Earth's axis. From Earth, it appears that the stars and constellations are moving relative to Earth. To astrologers, it appears they are moving backwards through the zodiac, with many arguing that the world is about to precess from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. A full Axial Precession appears to go through all twelve signs of the zodiac.
The current age is dated from 9701 BCE, or 11,700 years before Y2K. This is regarded by the International Commision on Stratigraphy as the beginning of the Holocene, when the last glacial period ("Ice Age") ended and human civilization began to evolve. The implications of an Age being 25,000 years in length means that human civilization is less than halfway through the current Age. This suggests that human civilization has a lot more evolving to do in order to become truly "civilized." The degree to which we threaten all life on Earth due to modern consumer lifestyles and the threat of nuclear war is a testament to how much more evolving we as a species must do.
Years and days
While the Epic Time Scale makes it easier to track events in the distant past and far future, the method for subdividing the years improves on the Gregorian Calendar by introducing reforms influenced by the Solar Hijri and Mayan calendars. These reforms improve the accuracy of the calendar over the Gregorian Calendar and make it easier to subdivide and plan the year.
| Time unit | Length of time |
|---|---|
| 1 Age | 250 centuries |
| 1 Century | 100 years |
| 1 Year | 4 Quarters/365-366 days |
| 1 Quarter | 91-92 days |
The Century and Year are, of course, the same as the Gregorian and many other calendars.
The length of the year—365 or 366 days—provides a challenge for continuing the “rule of one hundreds.” But dividing the year into Quarters, as done in the World Seasons Calendar, produces units of 91-92 days each, which is close to one hundred and therefore can be said to continue the rule of “one hundreds.”
Like the World Seasons Calendar, the new year starts around of the time of the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike the World Seasons Calendar however, that date isn’t always December 21. Instead, the Earth Epic Calendar determines the date of the new year using a method similar to the observation-based Solar Hijri Calendar That system begins the new year at the midnight closest to (before or after) the Spring Equinox. In the Earth Seasons Calendar, the new year begins at the midnight (UTC) closest to the Winter Solstice. Leap years are not determined by a specific formula, then, but the actual number of days between New Years--sometimes the days number 366, and other times 365. Most of the time, leap years occur every four years, but sometimes the interval is five years. This observation-based model puts the Earth Epic Calendar up with the Solar Hijri calendar as the most accurate solar calendar today.
Quarters by default are 91 days. The length of these quarters makes planning easier. By seeing thirteen weeks at once on a calendar page rather than four or five, scheduling further into the future becomes easier. Given that 91 x 4 = 364, it needs to be determined where to put the 365th day and the leap day. Again, the Solar Hirji calendar currently provides the most accurate model, as the longest months of the year currently occur during the Northern Hemisphere spring and summer. This is because actual astronomical seasons vary in length between 88 and 93 days, and will change as the Earth proceeds through the Axial Precession cycle.
The lengths of the quarters in the Earth Epic Calendar do not align with the seasons because the Earth Epic Calendar values symmetry of the year and ease of planning over alignment with actual seasons. The calendar does, however will add the 365th day and the leap year day to the months most closely aligned with the longest astronomical season—in this case the end of summer for the 365th day and the end of spring for the leap day. By adding an extra day to the end of the summer quarter and a leap year day at the end of the spring quarter, the Earth Epic Calendar seeks to make planning easier through more equal divisions of the year.
Unlike Gregorian days and years, the Earth Epic days and years begin with the number 0 instead of 1. This is similar to parts of the Maya Calendar system. For the Earth Epic Calendar, this is done because any unit of time can be subdivided, and even represent units less than 1. As such, the number of the day of any quarter represents the number of days already completed. The midnight after Day 0 begins Day 1 because one day in the quarter has at that point been completed. This is already done with the time of day--1:00 a.m. represents one hour completed after midnight. The concept of zero as a number didn’t exist in European society when the Julian Calendar was created, and the Gregorian calendar reforms did not address the complications caused by the fact that the year following 1 B.C. was 1 A.D.
The names of the quarters should be determined by local cultures, rather than imposing them on the entire world. But for international communication, the Earth Epic Calendar uses the names Northtide, Southtide, Easttide and Westtide. Northtide and Southtide correspond to the hemisphere to which the sun is closest—as such the quarter starting with the December solstice is named Southtide and the quarter starting with the June Solstice is Northtide. The names Easttide and Westtide are more metaphorical—with Easttide starting around the March Equinox and Westtide starting around the September Equinox.
The Earth Epic Calendar does not officially have weeks as part of the calendar. However, it currently uses them because the world’s schedule currently revolves around weeks. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism also rely on the seven day week in order to observe the Sabbath, though the three religions establish different sabbath days. It will be up to future generations to decide whether to continue with this practice. One option might include dividing the quarter into nine ten-day weeks, so that the last digit of the day also determines the day of the week.
Time
The time system in the Earth Epic Calendar is itself somewhat unique and new though not unprecedented. This calendar uses decimal time, which was used in China, attempted during the French Revolution and introduced at other times since then.
The Earth Epic Calendar designates a centiday as one one-hundredth of a day, a milliday as one thousandth of a day, and a sec as one one-hundredth of a milliday. Thus the rule of one hundreds doesn’t quite apply as neatly with time, but it is surprisingly easy to visualize these times as they correspond quite closely to intervals of time we are familiar with today. A centiday is close to fifteen minutes, a milliday is a little more than a minute, and a sec is a little bit less than a second.
| Unit of time | Equivalent length |
|---|---|
| 1 day | 100 centidays (cday),1000 millidays (mday) |
| 1 cday | 10 mday, 14 minutes, 24 seconds |
| 1 mday | 100 secs,1 minute, 26.4
seconds |
| 1 sec | 0.864 seconds |
Using a centiday as a measure keeps with the “rule of one hundreds,” and in addition is a little bit less than fifteen minutes in length, resulting in a little more than four centidays per hour. However, it takes one thousand secs to make up a centiday and only ten millidays to make up a centiday. So no matter what, the rule of one hundreds will get thrown off. One hundred secs makes up a milliday, which is a little bit more than a minute. So 62 centidays, 3 millidays and 77 secs would read like this: 62.377 cday.
Using a milliday as the main measure would give a three digit number between 000 and 999 as a the time, with the digits representing one-tenth, one-one hundredth, and one-thousandth of a day, respectively. So 623 millidays and 77 secs would read like this: 623.77 mday.
While the milliday would be easier to understand as a written time expression, the centiday might be useful in everyday discourse as a unit of time when talking about scheduling. Ultimately, those who adopt this system will determine the best way to use it.
For further information, please visit http://earthepiccalendar.com/.