941–950 of 1001 posts
Alien: So what is your first month? Human: January A: And why is it called that? H: It's named for the god Janus. A: Ah yes, many civilizations name their time divisions after deities, what is he the god of? H: I don't know, we don't worship him anymore. A: Ahh so you guys have moved past your need for religion H: No, no, we still worship gods, just different ones. A: Okay then, how about February, what god is that m…
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I think there is a distinction between what people consider the first day of the week and what is printed on a calendar.
Really? If someone says "let's meet the 3rd week of April" and you say "ok, let's do Sunday", do you really mean the Sunday in the 4th calendar row?
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Bruh. You can't really define seasons with day-precision based on weather or climate.
You can't define seasons with day precision based on anything.
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Oxford English Dictionary says: classical Latin Māius (adjective and, short for Māius mēnsis , noun), probably For April, on the other hand: classical Latin Aprīlis, use as noun (short for mēnsis Aprīlis month of April) of masculine of Aprīlis of April, of uncertain origin; perhaps (Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource. In the UK you can often get free online access through free membership of a public librar…
> Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource. Absolutely true, but difficult to get access from the US without a university affiliation. However, it isn't obvious that the OED is a better source on the meaning of a classical Latin month name than a classical Roman is. It's certainly possible, but not close to a slam dunk. And the OED is appropriately hesitant to say that it knows the origin of the name. I'd be cur…
Curiosity should be rewarded!
"This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online September 2022)."
And there's a link to "Previous version: OED2 (1989)" where the etymology is given as: ... "The etymology of the Latin name is obscure; some ancient writers connected it with the name of the goddess Maia."
(Since you read Ovid probably there's nothing new for you in that!)
(If the moon were somehow stationary relative to the earth, it would still go through a full cycle of phases, giving us one lunar month for free.)
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Decimal is a natural convention once you're using fingers to count, which humans usually do while they're figuring it all out.
Not true. You can count knuckles on one hand up to 12, two hands up to 144, or 60 if you’re using fingers of one hand and knuckles of the other. Societies used to count knuckles, which is why duodecimal systems were a lot more popular back then. Way easier for doing fractions and divisions in your head as well. Decimal is a system best suited for written math.
You can count to 12 that way, too, e.g. by folding the thumb first to indicate 1, and then unfolding it with the rest of the fingers folded when you get to 6. Or you can turn the fist upside down etc. Again, there are many techniques, but counting by folding or unfolding fingers is the simplest and the most obvious, which is why base-10 is the most common.
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Decimal is a natural convention once you're using fingers to count, which humans usually do while they're figuring it all out.
As most of us have successfully figured out counting, we can move on to measurement systems that are more convenient when dividing.
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I'm also not a fan of the "alien-who-is-really-the-writer has an objectively superior and judgmental perspective" genre, even when it's trying to be funny. Some movies: K-PAX was one, Powder, another.
It's just a rhetorical mechanism to deliver critique in a format that is entertaining and not too dry.
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You can't define seasons with day precision based on anything.
1/4 of the time it takes for earth to cross a line between the sun and a particular feature of the CMB, granted the CMB feature would be arbitrary
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"Next" has terrible ambiguity, beyond the phrase "next week." If it's Monday and someone says "next Thursday" do they mean the coming Thursday (+3) or the one after that (+10)? I assume the latter, except when it's said by people who I know disagree! But even with people I don't put in that category, I'd hesitate to assume +13 days if they said "next Sunday" on Monday. More likely they mean +6 when it's so far out...
Tell me about it. My wife and I cannot agree on the meaning of "next" for almost anything, and we are Spanish speakers. For example, when driving, to her "turn at the next corner" means "the corner after the next", while to me it means "the corner the car is about to cross". What I call "the next corner" to her is " this corner". Same with days, of course. It drives me crazy!