Time?

[Tommahawk]

Hi, I am writing a little software program that displays time on the basis that a earth year is a measure of the earth making 1 revolution around the sun.

 

In contrast to "In the year of our Lord 2004"

or in contrast to another culture ideal of time.

 

The question is what year is it?

or how manyrevolutions has the earth made around the sun?

[TimeTraveler]

I don't think it is possible to get a firm answer, but a close estimate would be the year: 5,000,000,000

[ecoli]

Uranium Dating in the rocks estimate that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. However, because how the earth formed is mostly speculative, we can't know for sure how long the body we know as earth as been revolving around the sun. There could have been matter circiling the sun, that would become our earth long before it actually formed.

[jay geo]

yes the earth is abt 4.5 b yrs old and men has been around for the last 6000 yrs only...

[Ophiolite]

yes the earth is abt 4.5 b yrs old and men has been around for the last 6000 yrs only...

If you would just care to multiply that last figure by thirty (30) please. Civilisation alone is older than 6000 years.

[swansont]

yes the earth is abt 4.5 b yrs old and men has been around for the last 6000 yrs only...

 

Humans (Homo sapiens) have been around a tad longer than that; ~50k years. Agriculture has been around for ~10k years.

[Auk]

I don't think it is possible to get a firm answer, but a close estimate would be the year: 5,000,000,000

 

How did you estimate that?

[JaKiri]

Read the post after his.

[Auk]

I know but why add another 0.5 billion was the question?

[2004einstein]

Can you really put a date on when we actually became Homo sapiens, Isnt it less of a linear thing, we didnt just sublimate from what ever came before. Plus there is interbreading to take into account.

I like this non-creationalist calendar idea seeing as I am an athiest but I would put the start date at the point life in general started myself, but then you still have pin-pointing problems there. :grin:

[swansont]

Can you really put a date on when we actually became Homo sapiens,

 

You're right - all dates are approximate.

[JaKiri]

I know but why add another 0.5 billion was the question?

 

It's all fairly approximate; obviously he didn't mean 5,000,000,000 exactly, but 5x10^9. One significant figure.

[Guest Caesar Rahil]

The Earth may be, at an estimate, 4.5 to 5 billion years old. But at first it was in the Hot, Gaseous state and has been cooled down.

[Tommahawk]

So in this case what I am going to do is take 5,000,000,000 years and add the current date which is another 2005 years to it and call it a new name and say that is the date/time.

 

Any objections or ideas on making this more precise or acceptable.

[Xavier]

Don't forget that the Earth has been slowing down. It loses energy due to friction and widens its orbit, conserving angular momentum so a year took less than a year back then.

[nomadd22]

4,856,985.36