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Littlestone
Littlestone
5386 posts

Year Dating Conventions
Oct 11, 2006, 10:38
Found this which might be of interest -

"Of course, Exiguus' dating system still lacks a "0" year which makes calendrical calculations awkward. The "astronomical" dating system refers to an alternative method of numbering years. It includes the year "0" and eliminates the need for any prefixes or suffixes by attributing the arithmetic sign to the date. Thus, the astronomical date for 2000 CE is simply +2000 or 2000. The astronomical year 0 corresponds to the year 1 BCE, while the astronomical year -1 corresponds to 2 BCE. In general, any given year "n BCE" becomes "-(n-1)" in the astronomical year numbering system. Historians should take care to note the numerical difference of one year between "BCE" dates and astronomical dates."*

On a minor point, wonder if it's set in stone to show BCE and CE in upper case? And what about a space between the number and the letter? Notice TMA (homepage) uses lower case with no space between number and letter; it does look more attractive that way - ie 2000ce rather than 2000 CE.

* http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/dates.html
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