Introduction

Abstract

The origin of the notion of time granularity probably goes back to the first efforts to measure time by human beings, and this really was a long time ago. From a carved eagle bone representing a lunar calendar found by archeologists, it seems that some 13,000 years ago Cro-Magnon men were the first to recognize the notions of time granularities and calendars.

In modern times we take the mechanism of the calendar for granted, as we do breathing and the force of gravity. Passing through years, months, weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds, we seldom think about where these things came from, or why we have chosen to divide time one way and not another. It has not always been so. For thousands of years the effort to measure time and to create a workable calendar was one of the great struggles of humanity, a conundrum for astronomers, mathematicians, priests, kings, and anyone else who needed to count the days until the next harvest, to calculate when taxes were due, or to figure out the exact moment a sacrifice should be made to appease an angry god.

Calendar, Humanity’s Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year, by David Duncan