Hi Everyone, Just realized that, European style, today 20/11/02 is a neat date. Cheers, Ken R.
So is 02-11-20, and more logical, and consistent with an agreement signed by almost every country in the world a little over a quarter of a century ago, even including the US at that time. You say `European style', but the Hungarians used (the stlye) 02:xi:20 from time immemorial. The top of my copy of your message had 20 Nov 2002. R. On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Ken Roberts wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Just realized that, European style, today 20/11/02 is a neat date.
Cheers,
Ken R.
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The most consistent style of writing dates is yyyy mm dd, treating the date as a number in a system with variable radix, the more significant digits written to the left. I believe astronomers use this system.
----- Original Message ----- From: "John McCarthy" <jmc@steam.Stanford.EDU> To: <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:08 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] 20/11/02
The most consistent style of writing dates is yyyy mm dd, treating the date as a number in a system with variable radix, the more significant digits written to the left. I believe astronomers use this system.
Also referred to as "sort-friendly." Other styles are pessimal.
This is from the Chicago Manual of Style: * * * 8.45 Another system, less elegant [than the 'Hungarian' system RKG mentions, below] is one employed by the military. In this the order day-month-year is preserved, but the name of the month is abbreviated to three three letters, where necessary, with a period. Thus 31 December 1991 appears as 31 Dec 91 (army style) or 31 DEC 91 (navy style). * * * I have an (unconfirmed) memory of EB White strongly speaking out for this "20 Nov 2002" format in the Elements of Style. It's easy to read I think, to have the numerals balanced by the letters of the month in the middle, and it avoids all the ambiguity with the month/day orderings. It doesn't seem to be catching on though. Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Guy" <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> To: <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 2:29 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] 20/11/02
So is 02-11-20, and more logical, and consistent with an agreement signed by almost every country in the world a little over a quarter of a century ago, even including the US at that time. You say `European style', but the Hungarians used (the stlye) 02:xi:20 from time immemorial. The top of my copy of your message had 20 Nov 2002.
R.
On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Ken Roberts wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Just realized that, European style, today 20/11/02 is a neat date.
Cheers,
Ken R.
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For the last few years I have been writing dates in what one might term "Hungarian Humanist" style: 2002 November 20. When there is not enough space in the blank, I abbreviate the month name. The reason for using the name of the month instead of its number, is to disambiguate the format. I don't have to explain my format to anyone: it can be parsed in only one way. For a time I toyed with using the Julian Day Number from astronomy (in which 2000 January 1 is day number 2451545, and days are simply numbered sequentially) but decided that would be worse than "11 Brumaire". -A
I like the proposal made in the book "The Clock of the Long Now" that years should be written with 5 digits (02002 etc) to encourage people to think about the long-term rather than the short-term. Neil Sloane
----- Original Message ----- From: "N. J. A. Sloane" <njas@research.att.com> To: <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>; <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 6:48 PM Subject: Re: 20 Nov 2002: (was [math-fun] 20/11/02)
I like the proposal made in the book "The Clock of the Long Now" that years should be written with 5 digits (02002 etc) to encourage people to think about the long-term rather than the short-term.
Neil Sloane
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That is not long-term enough. A proper system would put an unambiguous number on all times from the Big Bang to the slightly uncertain end of the Universe as we know it. I therefore propose a Julian-day-type system whereby each day is given a 14-digit number (rising to 15, 16, ...). Of course since day length varies, some terms for correction would be added. And within each day, I suggest that the time be counted in femtoseconds from midnight, resulting in a 20-digit number. So right now, for example, would be known as 63478920666523.745372555285332573966 wait, 967, hold it, 968.,,,oh, you get the idea.. These ideas will cause a great and long overdue coming together of science and everyday life and will lead to a huge increase in funding. Or shooting of scientists.
participants (7)
-
Allan C. Wechsler -
John McCarthy -
Ken Roberts -
N. J. A. Sloane -
Richard Guy -
Steve Gray -
Thane Plambeck