The Ithaca Journal from Ithaca, New York • 12

2B Today's Topic The Ithaca Journal Friday, December 31, 1999 Minutes to mfflemuimi. man on lime ty in Pittsburgh, author of "Millenni- um III, Century XXI," and it wasn't until the 1920s that we developed the; concept of decade, as a way of charac- terizing a time of change. In the late 1500s, with accumulated! extra leap year days causing Easter's' date to wander confusingly around the! old calendar, Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII established the system we use today, the Gregorian calendar. And though not everyone is happy; with a calendar that requires a rhyme. days hath September to' remember which month has how, many days, the Gregorian remains the global standard.

It is, 30,000 years after that Cro- Magnon moon-watcher, the way we measure the yearly flow of time's river. tem. In 2600 B.C., the Chinese devised a 12-month lunar calendar. A succession of peoples in southrn England used the standing stones of Stonehenge to reflect the movement as the sky of the sun, moon and stars. Some of the ancient calendars are still in use, but the spread of Christianity across the planet the past 2,000 years spread that faith's calendar, too.

An early version, the Julian calendar, was introduced in Rome in 45 B.C. by the emperor Julius Caesar. It was itself a revision of a 700-year-old calendar. In the sixth century A.D., a Catholic monk named Dionysius Exiguus first formally measured time from what he calculated to be the birth date of Jesus. People didn't begin to keep track of centuries until 1300, said Peter Stearns of Carnegie Mellon Universi solar year.

It tracked cycles of planetary cooling (snow falling in the mountains up-river) and warming (snow melting and flooding the Nile) as Earth's axis tilted in its orbit around the sun. Soon after, Egyptian astronomers calculated a duration for one orbit what we now call the "year" at 365 days and six hours. (Only 11 minutes and 12 seconds longer than the current standard.) "Every culture, no matter how sophisticated, has some way to mark the passage of time," Duncan said. Peoples separated by oceans, oblivious of each other, developed calendars of nearly identical lengths. The Mayan civilization in Central America established 260-day and 365-day calendars using the sun, the moon and the planet Venus.

Bali, in what is now Indonesia, observed a 12-month sys Vanessa Lynea Doane niRorn Feh.9.1999 'p To Cathy Orzel Doane and Brent Doane of Newark Valley By HOLUS ENGLEY Gannett News Service Time is a river. It is wide and deep, and we all live in its flow. You and your 10-times-great-grandparents, the builders of England's Stonehenge and Sudan's pyramids of Kush, the historical Helen of Troy and the contemporary Helen Hunt All exist in the same river. Tune is featureless to most of us, with no weight or texture of its own. It flows past tomorrow's sunrise, Ramadan and Yom Kippur, 1492 and 1776.

But we treat time as if it is solid as a gold Rolex watch. We order and measure our lives on it. Anniversaries ahd birthdays are signposts that tell us where we are in life. Take 50th birthdays. That round number has already greeted the oldest of the baby boomers the 78 million people born in the United States from 1946 to 1965.

Some 10,000 more boomers turn 50 every day, including 3,650,000 in 1999. And time is an industry. Sixty-five million watches are sold in the United States every year, according to Timex, and the people who make Day-Timer calendar planners sell 4 million to 6 million items every year from daily plans to refill pages for the coming year. And now, with the arrival at midnight of the round-numbered year 2000 and the official beginning of the third millennium on Jan. 1, 2001, time is occupying our minds, media and social calendars even more.

The Internet is loaded with millennium-related Web sites, from party planners to commemorative merchandise. The Pacific island nations of Tonga, Kiri and New Zealand all claim they will be the first to see the dawn of 2000, the better to attract cruise ships full of millennial tourists. Despite historical evidence that Jesus was probably born four or five years before the year 1 A.D., the Vatican in Rome is observing a global Jubilee. Some millennial Christian sects anticipate the triumphal return of Jesus and the final battle between good and evil, just as their fearful predecessors did when the calendar turned from 999 to 1000. All because of time, and the sometimes random way we measure it.

Here's one broad definition of time, from the Oxford English Dictionary: is "distributed" via satellite, telephone and Internet to other timekeepers, scientists, ships' navigators, communications companies, people who simply want to know what time it is. Like McCarthy, the rest of us measure invisible time and give those measurements real meaning. Millions will celebrate the turning of the calendar to the year 2000. Parties from Tonga to Terre Haute will begin the yearlong countdown to the official start of the third thousand-year cycle since the births of Jesus Christ. The way we measure time depends on where in the universe we're standing.

And most historians and astronomers say that beyond Earth the years 2000 and 2001 have no intrinsic significance. "What we perceive as a day or year is very local," says Susan Trammell, astronomer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "We measure a day as the time it takes the Earth to rotate once. Even in our own solar system that's a relative measure of time." So time and millennia mean what we decide they mean. Long before the year 2000 buzz, before anyone knew what time was, primitive humans began to see an order in the movements of the moon, sun and stars.

They decided they could measure time. Thirty millennia ago, someone in what is now the Dordogne region of France noticed the regularity of the moon's phases and marked them on a bone that survives to this day. It was one of the earliest attempts at a calendar. It was more than just a clever Cro-Magnon party trick. Lives would depend on it.

"Imagine life without the calendar," Duncan said. "If you're a cave man trying to figure out when the reindeer are going to return to France, (you) need some sort of framework." Egyptians 6,000 years ago were the first to devise something close to today's calendar. Farmers along the Nile realized the life-giving river flooded predictable intervals. That observation became, Duncan said, one of the earliest common sun-based calendars, allowing farmers to plan, plant and harvest between floods. The planting system measured the 'Imagine life without the calendar.

If you're a cave man trying to figure out when the reindeer are going to return to France, (you) need some sort of David Ewing Duncan, author "A finite extent of continued existence." A human female's expected life span (79 years), for example, or a male Anopheles mosquito's (7-10 days). "One of the first things we became conscious of when we became conscious was the passage of time," said David Ewing Duncan, author of "Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year." "For the very simple reason that we're born and then we die. We're linear beings." And early on we incorporated time consciousness into our lrves and cultures. Our daily language is full of it: times's up, the time of your life, good times, bad times, long time no see, time is on our side, short-timer. "Time is buried through the whole infrastructure," said Dennis McCarthy, an astronomer who holds the Oz-like title of Director of Time at the U.S.

Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. The Naval Observatory, set up in 1830 to aid ship navigation, once determined time by measuring the ponderous rotation of our planet. But Earth's spin is imprecise; a strong storm off the Pacific blowing against the Rocky Mountains, for example, can literally slow the planet, however slightly. So today, 70 $70,000 clocks at the observatory measure the much more precise resonance of atoms of the metal cesium. The times of the 30 most accurate of these atomic clocks are averaged to create a world standard accurate to one-tenth of one-billionth of a second per day (more or less).

The resulting commodity time KM i Sol Goldberg Circa 1923 You can't tell how far a frog can jump just by looking at 1972: The Ruoffs, Arthur, Enid, BUI, Jeff and Ken visited Yellowstone Park.We brought an I ingredient list from an ice cream bar to Don McLaughlin at Jon Rightmire "The Joy is in the Ride" 1974-1998 I'urity. tie maue me mint ice cream with chocolate covering on a stick. "Fandango," which evolved into Purity's mint chocolate-chip ice cream. 4m Mo Lis, August 28, 1999 Save these dates the evolution of the calendar Keeping track of the days began with a curious Cro-Magnon person 30,000 years ago, who carefully recorded the regular phases of the moon. Before we knew it well, 24,000 years later Egyptians developed the first solar calendar.

In the late 1 500s, Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII established the system we use today, the Gregorian calendar. Jfichol, 'S 8 pi rnn fi EH EJ PTl rrTirnra ess ma Cro-Magnon Egyptian Early Chinese bone carving of solar calendar Jesus Seven- Mohammed Pope Invention Gregorian Gregorian Gregorian calendar 365-day Mayan unnsi is oay weeK nees Mecca, uemeni vi or printing caienaar caienoar calendar one bom lunar calendar, calendar in Europe marks press; first established accepted in accepted in attempts It has been 3 years since you were taken away. I miss and love you so much! found in France calendar calendars umna Japan of three in use, Cental America reform printed rjegirmmg ot Muslim calendar Stonehenge, England 1100 13M 1300 1S00 1600 1700 Love, Danielle (Dano) La- First mechanical clocks Gregorian calendar accepted in Russia Roger Bacon suggests, errors in calendar Gregorian calendar accepted by Great Bntam and colonies The first Beginning 360-day 12- knowndate of Current Sumerian month calculated Mayan calendar Roman that the Great calendar Egyptians Cycle Julian calendar of 365 days, 6 hours, is enacted BCAD Claudius Ptolemy's solar year -365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, 13 seconds U.S. Naval Observatory begins tracking tme with atomic clocks to a New Century Astronomer Copernicus determines solar year length to be 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 29 seconds a date for this year Janet Loehrke, Gannett News Service Source: Calendar by David Ewing Duncan, Avon Books Mileposts to mark journey through ages -V 1 I GO A Mike benise (Qske) Swansbrough 'United in Marriage CATHOLIC SCHOOLS Immaculate Conception School, a family tradition in Ithaca since 1 884, has educated nearly 4000 members of our community! July 31,1999 fis 3f the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth is approaching its birthday. Most scholars say Jesus was born in the year 4B.C.

The Tule Tree of Oaxaca: In the Mexican town of Santa Maria del Tule, there are eight ancient Auhue-huete trees, one of which is more than 2,000 years old. Humboldt Redwoods: The oldest of the redwood trees of California's Humboldt State Park have been growing for 2,200 years or more. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovered in a cave in Qumran on the West Bank of the Jordan River between 1947 and 1956, the scrolls include books of the Christian and Jewish bible's Old Testament and are nearly 2,000 years old. The Olympics: The first Olympic games were held in Greece in 776 B.C. King Tut: The Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun died in 1344 B.C.

The Volcano Thera: The ring-shaped Aegean island of Santorini, popular today with tourists, is what remains after an explosion of the volcano Thera in 1500 B.C The Great Wall of China: The Great Wall had its beginnings in the seventh-century The current wall was built in the Ming Dynasty more than 60 years ago. Windsor Castle: Almost 1,000 years ago, William the Conqueror and his army began the planning and construction of Windsor Castle. The Mezquita in Cordoba: The only mosque in Spain remaining from centuries of Muslim rule there is the nearly Mezquita. Though the newly empowered Catholic monarchs ordered a cathedral built inside it in the late 1400s, the horseshoe arches and carved wooden ceiling of the original mosque remain much the same as when they were built in 856 A.D. The Hopewell Culture: Monumental and often geometrically shaped earthen mounds in eastern North America are attributed to the Hopewell Culture of Native Americans 1,500 to 1,800 years ago.

Tribes who made up the culture shared crafts that used raw materials from as far away as the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. Christianity: The faith based on By HOLUS ENGLEY Gannett News Service How long is a millennium? That's easy 1,000 years. Sounds like a long time, especially in terms of the human life span, which is now generally 70 to 80 years. But a millennium is a relatively short span of time for the bristlecone pine tree in the West, one specimen of which has been dated at more than 4,700 years old. And it's briefer than an eye-blink compared to the age of the universe, which scientists believe started in the "Big Bang" 10 billion to 16 billion years ago.

Here's a list of human and natural creations that might help you put a thousand years into perspective: Sakyamuni Buddha: The Indian nobleman who was the first Buddha was born in 500 A.D. King Arthur On the promontory at Tintagel above the Cornwall coast of England are the ruins of the 13th-century castle and sixth-century monastery long rumored to be the birthplace of the legendary King Arthur. Truly Arthurian or not, it is the most visited place in Cornwall. Mrt Nina (Parker) Liskel celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary on Family of Aquarians Feb. 2: Pam, Karl, Karen Feb.

13: Larry, Gary Hold the party, millennium really ends next year (If sius Exiguus. Dionysius was working before the invention of the zero, and therefore started his system with the year 1 A.D., his calculation of the year of the birth of Jesus. Thus, the first hundred-year period (century) A.D. and every complete century thereafter ended on the last day of the 100th year. And the same is true millennia measured from 1 A.D.

Which is why the year 2000 is not the beginning of a millennium, but the beginning of the end. Gannett News Service When does the third millennium A.D. begin? That's easy. Jan. 1,2001.

"The end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third will be reached on Jan. 1, 2001," says the U.S. Naval Observatory, with authority and brevity. Which doesn't mean we won't party tonight away precisely one year earlier, when every numeral in 1999 rolls over and the year 2000 comes in. But the millennium is a different matter.

The year 2000, as momentous as its number sounds, is simply the final year of the second period in the dating system established by sixth-century monk Diony- Technics Patricia Mayo 1951-1999 We miss you. You will always be in our hearts. Love, your family The Ithaca Lions Club wishes to thank you for your support over the last half century. We will strive to continue our successful local and worldwide service projects throughout the next century. WE SERVE 3 5 DISC CD CHANGER Reg.

$219 SUE $139 Lieutenant Robert E. Kaske Black Sand Beach, Hawaii, 1942 r-3 SLPD888 Not As Shown.