Type:Historical date
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
The historical date data type is a new variation on Type:Date. The latter type essentially implemented the UNIX timestamp. This data type produces similar time-stamp output but can cover the full gamut of recorded human history.
Contents |
Technical background
The Julian Day
The basis of the Historical Date data type is the Julian Day. The epoch of Julian Days is noon on Monday, January 1, 4713 BC by the Julian calendar. Astronomers use this epoch because it predates every known record of an astronomical observation. Astronomers can therefore use this system for establishing a reliable date for an historical event listed as having occurred within an established interval of an astronomical event, such an an eclipse of the sun or moon.
The advantage to an historian, in this modern era of wiki software and electronic publishing, is obvious. If historians used Julian Days to timestamp events, then organizing such events into a timeline would be a very simple matter.
This, then, is the purpose of implementing dates as a datatype using Julian Days.
Julian Day-based implementation
CreationWiki administration does not intend that editors explicitly apply Julian Day timestamps. Instead, an editor can annotate any date for any event, so long as the text chosen for the annotation be correct according to common rules of style for mentioning dates in prose.
The Historical Date datatype automatically computes and stores a Julian Day for every annotated date, and produces ISO-8601-compliant RDF feed and an easy-to-read factbox printout. The static and instance methods of this datatype are based on the original Javascript that drives John Walker's Fourmilab Calendar Converter, which he has placed in the public domain.[1]
The Historical Date type has also been granted recognition for the processing of inline queries in timeline format.
Supported calendars
This data type supports the following calendars:
Annotation with properties having this type
You can build a property to describe any date in history by specifying [[Has type::Historical date]]. To use it, make sure that the text you annotate is in a standard English date-mentioning style. For example, to mention the putative date for the assassination of Julius Caesar, you can type any of the following:
- March 15, 44 BC
- 15 March 44 BC
- 44 BC March 15
- 44 BC
The last format is for specifying only a year. The database will store that internally as January 1 of the specified year.
You may also annotate a date and a time using the ISO 8601 format. That format is Y-m-dTH:i:s, or four digits for a year (with leading zeroes and a - for BC), two digits each for month and day (with a leading zero), and then hours, minutes, and seconds, two digits each, with leading zeroes. The program will store a Julian day with a mantissa that will reflect the time. Tests show that user-annotated times are preserved accurate to within one second.
If you must write your date in any format other than those listed, you can always make your annotated link appear in any style you wish (within CreationWiki's style guidelines, of course), so long as you make sure that the actual annotated text is in one of these formats. Attempting to annotate text in any other format will produce an error notice.
The languages of this data type
This data type currently supports months (from January through December) written in English, German, Spanish, French, Korean, Polish, and simplified Chinese.
Copyright Disclaimer
John Walker, head of Fourmilab.ch, has graciously declared to all who visit his Internet site that his calendar-related insights and all the programs he uses to produce calendar conversions are in the public domain.[1]
Reference
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Walker, John. Fourmilab Calendar Converter. Switzerland: Fourmilab, 2006. Accessed December 9, 2007.
This type is among the standard datatypes of this wiki.
Properties of type "Historical date"
Showing 22 properties using this type.
ABCD |
D cont.EFKL |
MTVW |
