Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2023 June 12

= June 12 =

Century years (June 4)

 * Transferred from Miscellaneous desk as this appears to be an astronomical question

The relevant Tabor lecture appears to be this one. The arguments appear to have been adequately answered in the response to the second of 90.221's posts of 19:16, 7 June 2023. 80.47.0.234 (talk) 12:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't see a question. The earlier discussion is archived here. --Lambiam 06:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The archive is not complete.  My comment below was drafted on the assumption it was complete (the missing comments precede it):

It's a matter of convenience. When King's Cross station was redesigned some years ago, rather than engage in wholesale renumbering, a platform zero was added. Another oddity is platform 9 3/4 for Harry Potter fans and no, Queen Boadicea is not buried under platform 9. Similar to people's ages, in India (and some other countries), "elapsed" years are used, i.e. the epoch is the start of year 0. The idea is taken up in Astronomical year numbering, where the series goes -2 (3 BC), -1 (2 BC), 0 (1 BC), (+) 1 (1 AD), (+) 2 (2 AD), and so on. 2A02:C7C:38C1:3600:ACCF:3F82:63F1:1958 (talk) 10:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Fairly obviously, the reference to "1 January 4,317 BCE" should be "1 January, 4713." That noon starting time for the day (which astronomers observed until 1924) was designed to avoid a date change during observation. From 1925 they began using the normal civil day, beginning at midnight, but to avoid ambiguity they dropped the name "Greenwich Mean Time" (except when addressing the general public), replacing it with "Universal Time."

I don't have access to the lectures by James Tabor, but irrespective of his claims the only ambiguity is whether Christ was crucified on 14 or 15 Nisan. There has never been any doubt about the day of the week. Thus the term parasceve as I understand it (and I'm not an expert on Jewish holy days) would refer to Friday, 15 Nisan (commencing Thursday evening), the first day of Passover, which is an eight-day festival ending on 22 Nisan. The Last Supper took place that Thursday evening (Maundy Thursday) and Christ was crucified the following day. Alternatively, the parasceve was the preparation for both the weekly Saturday sabbath and the first day of Passover, if the two holy days coincided that year. In this scenario, Christ was not crucified on a holy day.

Whatever, Matthew 2762 refers to the crucifixion having happened on "the day of the preparation" and the order going out for the tomb to be secured "until the third day." This was made on the Saturday sabbath (Matthew 281) and on the first day of the week (Sunday) the women witnessed the empty tomb. The remaining Gospels tell a similar story. Another example is the "Today in history" feature in this morning's newspaper. The first item is


 * 632: Muhammad, founder of the Islamic religion, died in Mecca.

There are conflicting reports of the Islamic date (unlike ours, Islamic dates are fluid and the day of the week is needed to fix a date exactly) but the day of the week was Monday, which fixes the event without ambiguity to 8 June 632.92.28.112.82 (talk) 11:36, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

A similar situation arose at the very beginning of the Julian calendar. In astronomical year numbering the first year (45 BC) is -44. Being exactly divisible by four, some people cannot be shaken from the conviction that it was a leap year. Never mind that until comparatively recently before then the year began in March (which is why "December" was the tenth month). Macrobius spelt it out: owing to confusion caused by the inclusive numbering system the first leap day was added at the beginning of the "fourth year [February 42 BC] instead of at its end" (February 41 BC). It took decades to sort out the mess, and the first of the regular series of leap years at four-year intervals wasn't until AD 8. The Egyptians managed to operate the Julian calendar correctly from inception, as they did with the indigenous version of it, the Alexandrian calendar. 92.10.149.249 (talk) 11:15, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

While I was setting up the indents I was being continually chided by Microsoft:

It's better to have no space before this punctuation...One punctuation mark is all that's needed...A space should follow most punctuation...A space usually comes before this type of punctuation...You may have forgotten a punctuation mark

Remember that animated paper clip that used to appear with a speech bubble saying "Looks like you're writing a letter"?

We do actually know which day of the week 15 Nisan fell that year. The "counting of the Omer" begins on the day after Passover and it lasts for 50 days (counting inclusively), meaning that it ends on the same day of the week as that on which it began. It begins on 16 Nisan and ends on 6 Iyar (Pentecost). The Bible tells us that Pentecost was a Sunday that year, so the first day of Passover was necessarily a Saturday. However, in the original Greek, Matthew 28 opens with the words "In the end of the sabbaths [plural], as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." Various theories to explain the discrepancy have been put forward. Leviticus 23 says Pentecost should always be a Sunday, but that is not observed.

Luke 2354 says the day of the crucifixion "was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on." In verse 56, the women "returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day, according to the commandment."

The very next day, according to chapter 24, was "the first day of the week", leaving no doubt that the crucifixion happened on a Friday. The Last Supper, described in Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22, was some kind of Passover meal, but there is no agreement as to its exact nature. John 13 describes the supper as happening "before the feast of the passover."

Matthew 27 recounts that on the day after the crucifixion, which "followed the day of the preparation," the chief priests and Pharisees asked Pilate "that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away." So the crucial night was again that Saturday night, leading into Sunday morning. Mark 15 says that after the crucifixion, "when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath," Joseph of Arimathaea went to Pilate.

In Mark 16 the women wait for the sabbath to pass before going to the tomb. John 1931 notes that the day of the crucifixion "was the preparation," and the next day was "the sabbath day," and "that sabbath day was an high day," clearly marking out 15 Nisan as Saturday. John 1942 notes that because of this "preparation day" Jesus was laid in the tomb, where He remained throughout the sabbath, and then on the Sunday morning (John 201) Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty. 92.28.112.115 (talk) 17:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone ever come up with a plausible explanation for how Pokeballs could work in the real world?
Question as topic. Just for fun. I know there have been people written about how one might plausibly make a light saber or how a Star Trek phaser might work. Iloveparrots (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


 * HOW WOULD A POKEMON POKEBALL WORK IN REAL LIFE?. Alansplodge (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * What about that inconvenient complication known as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle??? 2601:646:9882:46E0:6998:C31A:9514:BAA4 (talk) 02:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * So for the moment I think your best bet is to use VR goggles. On a quick search I see there is a game PokeQuest VR being developed. NadVolum (talk) 20:03, 12 June 2023 (UTC)