Time
Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in irreversible succession through the past, in the present, the future. Time is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience. Time is referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions. Time has long been an important subject of study in religion and science, but defining it in a manner applicable to all fields without circularity has eluded scholars. Diverse fields such as business, sports, the sciences, the performing arts all incorporate some notion of time into their respective measuring systems. Time in physics is unambiguously operationally defined as "what a clock reads". See Units of Time. Time is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in both the International System of Units and International System of Quantities.
Time is used to define other quantities – such as velocity – so defining time in terms of such quantities would result in circularity of definition. An operational definition of time, wherein one says that observing a certain number of repetitions of one or another standard cyclical event constitutes one standard unit such as the second, is useful in the conduct of both advanced experiments and everyday affairs of life; the operational definition leaves aside the question whether there is something called time, apart from the counting activity just mentioned, that flows and that can be measured. Investigations of a single continuum called spacetime bring questions about space into questions about time, questions that have their roots in the works of early students of natural philosophy. Temporal measurement has occupied scientists and technologists, was a prime motivation in navigation and astronomy. Periodic events and periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time. Examples include the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, the beat of a heart.
The international unit of time, the second, is defined by measuring the electronic transition frequency of caesium atoms. Time is of significant social importance, having economic value as well as personal value, due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in human life spans. Speaking, methods of temporal measurement, or chronometry, take two distinct forms: the calendar, a mathematical tool for organising intervals of time, the clock, a physical mechanism that counts the passage of time. In day-to-day life, the clock is consulted for periods less than a day whereas the calendar is consulted for periods longer than a day. Personal electronic devices display both calendars and clocks simultaneously; the number that marks the occurrence of a specified event as to hour or date is obtained by counting from a fiducial epoch – a central reference point. Artifacts from the Paleolithic suggest that the moon was used to reckon time as early as 6,000 years ago. Lunar calendars were among the first to appear, with years of either 13 lunar months.
Without intercalation to add days or months to some years, seasons drift in a calendar based on twelve lunar months. Lunisolar calendars have a thirteenth month added to some years to make up for the difference between a full year and a year of just twelve lunar months; the numbers twelve and thirteen came to feature prominently in many cultures, at least due to this relationship of months to years. Other early forms of calendars originated in Mesoamerica in ancient Mayan civilization; these calendars were religiously and astronomically based, with 18 months in a year and 20 days in a month, plus five epagomenal days at the end of the year. The reforms of Julius Caesar in 45 BC put the Roman world on a solar calendar; this Julian calendar was faulty in that its intercalation still allowed the astronomical solstices and equinoxes to advance against it by about 11 minutes per year. Pope Gregory XIII introduced a correction in 1582. During the French Revolution, a new clock and calendar were invented in attempt to de-Christianize time and create a more rational system in order to replace the Gregorian calendar.
The French Republican Calendar's days consisted of ten hours of a hundred minutes of a hundred seconds, which marked a deviation from the 12-based duodecimal system used in many other devices by many cultures. The system was abolished in 1806. A large variety of devices have been invented to measure time; the study of these devices is called horology. An Egyptian device that dates to c. 1500 BC, similar in shape to a bent T-square, measured the passage of time from the shadow cast by its crossbar on a nonlinear rule. The T was oriented eastward in the mornings. At noon, the device was turned around so. A sundial uses a gnomon to cast a shadow on a set of markings calibrated to the hour; the position of the shadow marks the hour in local time. The idea to separate the day into smaller parts is credited to Egyptians because of their sundials, which operated on a duodecimal system; the importance of the number 12 is due to the number of lunar cycles in a year and the number of stars used to count the passage of night.
The most precise timekeeping device of the ancient
Muzi Epifani
Maria Luisa Gabriella Epifani, better known as Muzi Epifani, was an Italian writer and poet. Muzi Epifani was born in Libya, she studied literature and philosophy at the Heidelberg University and the University of Rome La Sapienza, where she obtained a degree in aesthetics under the supervision of Emilio Garroni. She was influenced by the Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and the anthropological thought of Ernesto de Martino, whose missions she worked on in Lucania and Salento. During her studies at La Sapienza, she met Alex Duran, Gabriele Giannantoni, Enzo Siciliano, Franco Voltaggio. Epifani was one of the first Italian writers to develop a distinctive style of female writings alongside Natalia Ginzburg, Luce d'Eramo, Dacia Maraini, Biancamaria Frabotta, Gabriella Sobrino, Angiola Sacripante, she was a attentive reader of English female writers such as Katherine Mansfield and, above all, Virginia Woolf. She collaborated with various newspapers, such as "l'Unità", "l'Avanti!", "Paese Sera".
She was considered an environmental activist and "Il Globo" published her own innovative column on the protection of the Italian landscape and environment entitled "Article 9", in reference to the Constitution of the Republic of Italy. Epifani worked as a journalist for RAI, Italy's national public broadcasting company, in the fields of theatre and literature. In her “Il Premio Viareggio? La mia vita”, Gabriella Sobrino described Muzi Epifani as always "surrounded by her children", they would work during the nights together "when we had managed to put to bed the children who would gather around us like puppies in their multi-coloured pyjamas". In 1976, her comedy "La fuga" won the "Young Theatre" Prize. In this satirical play, Epifani intertwined a personal affair with a current political debate concerning the abortion law in Italy; the writer exposed the Italian hypocrisy of people who would permit abortion in the private sphere whilst at the same time criticising it in public. The play has been republished in 2015.
The new edition, introduced by the Italian writer and film-director Cristina Comencini, has been presented at the Casa delle letterature in Rome by Cristina Comencini, Biancamaria Frabotta, Lucianna Di Lello and Franco Voltaggio, with readings made by the Italian actress Piera degli Esposti. Epifani is the mother of the film director Francesca Archibugi and of the economist Daniele Archibugi, a professor at Birkbeck College, University of London, she died in Rome. Muzi Epifani, Cloto. Poesia, Antonio Lalli Editore, Poggibonsi. Muzi Epifani, Infanzia di una casalinga emancipata, Prospetti, XII/48, December 1977. Muzi Epifani, Pazzi & creature, Venice 1982. Muzi Epifani, L'adulterio. Nuovi Argomenti, n. 16, October–December 1985. Muzi Epifani, La fuga, Rome 1976. Republished by La Mongolfiera Editrice e Spettacoli, Doria di Cassano Jonio, 2015 ISBN 978-88-96254-99-8. Muzi Epifani and Francesca Pansa, Di madre in madre, Teatro della Maddalena, Rome 1979. Muzi Epifani and Gabriella Sobrino, Rome. Muzi Epifani and Gabriella Sobrino, Contrada lunare, Rome.
Margaret Mead, Maschio e femmina, Il Saggiatore, Milan 1962. James H. Leuba, La psicologia del misticismo religioso, Milan 1960. Hans-Georg Gadamer Ernesto de Martino Natalia Ginzburg Feminism Écriture féminine Virago Press Muzi Epifani, From Europa in versi. La poesia femminile del'900, edited by Luce d'Eramo and Gabriella Sobrino, Il Ventaglio, Roma, 1989. Website of La Mongolfiera edizioni e spettacoli
Atropos
Atropos or Aisa, in Greek mythology, was one of the three Moirai, goddesses of fate and destiny. Her Roman equivalent was Morta. Atropos was the oldest of the Three Fates, was known as "the Inflexible One," or "inevitable." It was Atropos who chose the mechanism of death and ended the life of mortals by cutting their thread with her "abhorred shears". She worked along with her two sisters, who spun the thread, Lachesis, who measured the length. Atropos has been featured in several stories such as Achilles, her origin, along with the other two fates, is uncertain, although some called them the daughters of the night. It is clear, that at a certain period they ceased to be only concerned with death and became those powers who decided what may happen to individuals. Although Zeus was the chief Greek god and their father, he was still subject to the decisions of the Fates, thus the executor of destiny, rather than its source. According to Hesiod's Theogony and her sisters were the daughters of Erebus and Nyx and sister to Thanatos and Hypnos, though in the same work they are said to have been of Zeus and Themis.
Atropos lends her name to the genus Atropa, of which the poisonous plant Atropa belladonna is a member, to the alkaloid atropine, an anticholinergic drug, derived from it. The scientific name of a venomous snake, Bitis atropos, refers to Atropos. Works related to Theogony at Wikisource The dictionary definition of Atropos at Wiktionary Media related to Atropos at Wikimedia Commons
Alcestis
Alcestis or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her story was popularized in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis. Alcestis was the fairest among the daughters of Pelias, king of Iolcus, either Anaxibia or Phylomache, she was sister to Acastus, Pisidice and Hippothoe. Alcestis was the wife of Admetus by whom she bore a son, Eumelus, a participant in the siege of Troy, a daughter, Perimele. Many suitors tried to woo Alcestis when she came of age to marry, it was declared by her father that she would marry the first man to yoke a lion and a boar to a chariot. The man who would do this, King Admetus, was helped by Apollo, banished from Olympus for one year to serve as a shepherd to Admetus. With Apollo's help, Admetus completed the challenge set by King Pelias, was allowed to marry Alcestis, but in a sacrifice after the wedding, Admetus forgot to make the required offering to Artemis, therefore when he opened the marriage chamber he found his bed full of coiled snakes.
Apollo again helped the newlywed king, this time by making the Fates drunk, extracting from them a promise that if anyone would want to die instead of Admetus, they would allow it. And when the day of his death came near, no one volunteered not his elderly parents, but Alcestis stepped forth to die in his stead. Shortly after fighting with Hades, Heracles rescued Alcestis from the underworld as a token of appreciation for Admetus' hospitality. In some accounts Persephone,'the Maiden', sent her up again. Milton's famous sonnet, "Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint", alludes to the myth, with the speaker of the poem dreaming of his dead wife being brought to him "like Alcestis". In his poem "Past Ruin'd Ilion", English writer and poet Walter Savage Landor wrote the line "Alcestis rises from the shades" as having a double meaning, evoking her rise from Hades while demonstrating the ability of enduring poetry to give her vitality, drawing her into the light from the shadows of historical oblivion.
The Viennese composer Christoph Willibald Gluck wrote an opera based on the story of Alceste. Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully wrote an opera, first performed in 1674, based on the story of Alceste. George Frideric Handel wrote a semi-opera based on this myth. Anton Schweitzer composed an opera Alceste, with a libretto by Wieland, premiered in 1773 in Weimar as a milestone of German opera. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a poem "Alkestis". H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia Greene collaborated on a play called Alcestis. Thornton Wilder wrote A Life in the Sun based on Euripides' play producing an operatic version called The Alcestiad; the American choreographer Martha Graham created a ballet entitled Alcestis in 1960. In the animated Disney film Hercules, the background story of the Megara character alludes to Alcestis; as Hades tells it, Megara sells her soul for her lover, who does not honor the sacrifice and soon gives his heart to some other girl. Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria.
Online version at the Topos Text Project. Cotterell and Rachel Storm; the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology. Hermes House. ISBN 978-0-681-03218-7. Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F. B. A. F. R. S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. "Alcestis"—a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
Ananke
In ancient Greek religion, Ananke, is a personification of inevitability and necessity. She was depicted as holding a spindle. One of the Greek primordial deities or Greek primordial deities, the birth of Ananke marked the beginning of the cosmos, along with that of her brother and consort, Chronos. Ananke was considered as the most powerful dictator of circumstance; some times considered the mother of the Fates, she was thought to be the only being to have control over their decisions. According to the ancient Greek traveller Pausanias, there was a temple in ancient Corinth where the goddesses Ananke and Bia were worshiped together in the same shrine. Ananke who represents Fate or Necessity or Force is identified or associated with Aphrodite Aphrodite Ourania who represents celestial Love, as the two are considered two sides of the same power that dictates life, her Roman counterpart is Necessitas. "Ananke" is derived from the common Ancient Greek noun ἀνάγκη, meaning "force, constraint or necessity."
The common noun itself is of uncertain etymology. Homer refers to her being as necessity abstracted in modern translation or force. In Ancient Greek literature the word is used meaning "fate" or "destiny", by extension "compulsion or torture by a superior." She appears in poetry, as Simonides does: "Even the gods don’t fight against ananke". The pre-modern is carried over and translated into a more modern philosophical sense as "necessity", "logical necessity" or "laws of nature". In Orphic mythology, Ananke is a self-formed being who emerged at the dawn of creation with an incorporeal, serpentine form, her outstretched arms encompassing the cosmos. Ananke and Chronos are mates. Together they have crushed the primal egg of creation of which constituent parts became earth and sea to form the ordered universe. Ananke was the mother of the distributor of rewards and punishments; the Greek philosopher, Plato in his Republic discussed the parentage of the Moirai or the Fates in the following lines:And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Moirai, daughters of Ananke, clad in white vestments with filleted heads and Klotho, Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Seirenes, Lakhesis singing the things that were, Klotho the things that are, Atropos the things that are to be...
Lakhesis, the maiden daughter of Ananke. While Aeschylus, the famous tragedian gave us an account in his Prometheus Bound where the Moirai were called the helmsman of the goddess Ananke along with the three Erinyes:Prometheus: Not in this way is Moira, who brings all to fulfillment, destined to complete this course. Only when I have been bent by pangs and tortures infinite am I to escape my bondage. Skill is weaker by far than Ananke. Chorus: Who is the helmsman of Ananke? Prometheus: The three-shaped Moirai and mindful Erinyes. Chorus: Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do? Prometheus: Yes, in that he cannot escape what is foretold. Chorus: Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway? Prometheus: This you must not learn yet. Chorus: It is some solemn secret that you enshroud in mystery. In the Timaeus, Plato has the speaker Timaeus argue that in the creation of the universe, there is a uniting of opposing elements and necessity, as elsewhere Plato blends abstraction with his own myth making: "For this ordered world is of a mixed birth: it is the offspring of a union of Necessity and Intellect.
Intellect prevailing over Necessity by persuading it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best, the result of this subjugation of Necessity to wise persuasion was the initial formation of the universe". The word "Ananke" is featured in Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame of Paris, written upon a wall of Notre-Dame by the hand of Dom Claude Frollo. In his Toute la Lyre, Hugo mentions Ananke as a symbol of love. Here is what Hugo had to write about it in 1866. Religion, nature; these three conflicts are, at the same time, his three needs: it is necessary for him to believe, hence the temple. But these three solutions contain three conflicts; the mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three. Man has to deal with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, under the form of the elements. A triple "ananke" weighs upon us, the "ananke" of dogmas, the "ananke" of laws, the "ananke" of things. In Notre Dame de Paris the author has denounced the first.
With these three fatalities which envelop man is mingled the interior fatality, that supreme ananke, the
Republic (Plato)
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state, the just man. It is Plato's best-known work, has proven to be one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically. In the dialogue, Socrates discusses with various Athenians and foreigners about the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man, they consider the natures of existing regimes and propose a series of different, hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis, a city-state ruled by a philosopher king. They discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, the role of the philosopher and of poetry in society; the dialogue's setting seems to be during the Peloponnesian War. While visiting the Piraeus with Glaucon, Polemarchus asks Socrates to join him for a celebration. Socrates asks Cephalus and Thrasymachus their definitions of justice.
Cephalus defines justice as giving. Polemarchus says justice is "the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies." Thrasymachus proclaims "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger." Socrates overturns their definitions and says that it is to your advantage to be just and disadvantage to be unjust. The first book ends in aporia concerning its essence. Socrates believes he is done with the discussion of justice. Socrates' young companions and Adeimantus, continue the argument of Thrasymachus for the sake of furthering the discussion. Glaucon gives a speech in which he argues first that the origin of justice was in social contracts aimed at preventing one from suffering injustice and being unable to take revenge, second that all those who practice justice do so unwillingly and out of fear of punishment, third that the life of the unjust man is far more blessed than that of the just man. Glaucon would like Socrates to prove that justice is not only desirable, but that it belongs to the highest class of desirable things: those desired both for their own sake and their consequences.
After Glaucon's speech, Adeimantus adds that, in this thought experiment, the unjust should not fear any sort of divine judgement in the afterlife, since the poets who wrote about such judgement wrote that the gods would grant forgiveness to those humans who made ample religious sacrifice. Adeimantus demonstrates his reason by drawing two detailed portraits, that the unjust man could grow wealthy by injustice, devoting a percentage of this gain to religious sacrifices, thus rendering him innocent in the eyes of the gods. Socrates suggests. After attributing the origin of society to the individual not being self-sufficient and having many needs which he cannot supply himself, they go on to describe the development of the city. Socrates first describes the "healthy state", but Glaucon asks him to describe "a city of pigs", as he finds little difference between the two, he goes on to describe the luxurious city, which he calls "a fevered state". This requires a guardian class to attack on its account.
This begins a discussion concerning the type of education that ought to be given to these guardians in their early years, including the topic of what kind of stories are appropriate. They conclude that stories that ascribe evil to the gods should not be taught. Socrates and his companions Adeimantus and Glaucon conclude their discussion concerning education. Socrates breaks the educational system into two, they suggest that guardians should be educated in these four virtues: wisdom, courage and temperance. They suggest that the second part of the guardians' education should be in gymnastics. With physical training they will be able to live without needing frequent medical attention: physical training will help prevent illness and weakness. Socrates asserts that both male and female guardians be given the same education, that all wives and children be shared, that they be prohibited from owning private property. Socrates and his companions conclude their discussion concerning the lifestyle of the guardians, thus concluding their initial assessment of the city as a whole.
Socrates assumes. If the city as a whole is happy individuals are happy. In the physical education and diet of the guardians, the emphasis is on moderation, since both poverty and excessive wealth will corrupt them. Without controlling their education, the city cannot control the future rulers. Socrates says that it is pointless to worry over specific laws, like those pertaining to contracts, since proper education ensures lawful behavior, poor education causes lawlessness. Socrates proceeds to search for wisdom and temperance in the city, on the grounds that justice will be easier to discern in what remains, they find wisdom among the guardian rulers, courage among the guardian warriors, temperance among all classes of the city in agreeing about who should rule and who should be ruled. Socrates defines justice in the city as the state in which each class performs only its own work, not meddling in the work of the other classes; the virtues discovered in the city are sought in the individual soul.
For this purpose, Socrates creates an analogy between the parts of the soul. He argues that psychological conflict points to a divided soul, since a unified soul could not behave in opposite ways towards the same object, at the same time, i
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, commercial or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time days, weeks and years. A date is the designation of a specific day within such a system. A calendar is a physical record of such a system. A calendar can mean a list of planned events, such as a court calendar or a or chronological list of documents, such as a calendar of wills. Periods in a calendar are though not synchronised with the cycle of the sun or the moon; the most common type of pre-modern calendar was the lunisolar calendar, a lunar calendar that adds one intercalary month to remain synchronised with the solar year over the long term. The term calendar is taken from calendae, the term for the first day of the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb calare "to call out", referring to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first seen. Latin calendarium meant "account book, register"; the Latin term was adopted in Old French as calendier and from there in Middle English as calender by the 13th century.
A calendar can be on paper or electronic device. The course of the sun and the moon are the most salient natural recurring events useful for timekeeping, thus in pre-modern societies worldwide lunation and the year were most used as time units; the Roman calendar contained remnants of a ancient pre-Etruscan 10-month solar year. The first recorded physical calendars, dependent on the development of writing in the Ancient Near East, are the Bronze Age Egyptian and Sumerian calendars. A large number of Ancient Near East calendar systems based on the Babylonian calendar date from the Iron Age, among them the calendar system of the Persian Empire, which in turn gave rise to the Zoroastrian calendar and the Hebrew calendar. A great number of Hellenic calendars developed in Classical Greece, in the Hellenistic period gave rise to both the ancient Roman calendar and to various Hindu calendars. Calendars in antiquity were lunisolar, depending on the introduction of intercalary months to align the solar and the lunar years.
This was based on observation, but there may have been early attempts to model the pattern of intercalation algorithmically, as evidenced in the fragmentary 2nd-century Coligny calendar. The Roman calendar was reformed by Julius Caesar in 45 BC; the Julian calendar was no longer dependent on the observation of the new moon but followed an algorithm of introducing a leap day every four years. This created a dissociation of the calendar month from the lunation; the Islamic calendar is based on the prohibition of intercalation by Muhammad, in Islamic tradition dated to a sermon held on 9 Dhu al-Hijjah AH 10. This resulted in an observation-based lunar calendar that shifts relative to the seasons of the solar year; the first calendar reform of the early modern era was the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582 based on the observation of a long-term shift between the Julian calendar and the solar year. There have been a number of modern proposals for reform of the calendar, such as the World Calendar, International Fixed Calendar, Holocene calendar, the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar.
Such ideas are mooted from time to time but have failed to gain traction because of the loss of continuity, massive upheaval in implementation, religious objections. A full calendar system has a different calendar date for every day, thus the week cycle is by itself not a full calendar system. The simplest calendar system just counts time periods from a reference date; this applies for Unix Time. The only possible variation is using a different reference date, in particular, one less distant in the past to make the numbers smaller. Computations in these systems are just a matter of subtraction. Other calendars have one larger units of time. Calendars that contain one level of cycles: week and weekday – this system is not common year and ordinal date within the year, e.g. the ISO 8601 ordinal date systemCalendars with two levels of cycles: year and day – most systems, including the Gregorian calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Solar Hijri calendar and the Hebrew calendar year and weekday – e.g. the ISO week dateCycles can be synchronized with periodic phenomena: Lunar calendars are synchronized to the motion of the Moon.
Solar calendars are based on perceived seasonal changes synchronized to the apparent motion of the Sun. Lunisolar calendars are based on a combination of both solar and lunar reckonings; the week cycle is an example of one, not synchronized to any external phenomenon. A calendar includes more than one type of cycle, or has both cyclic and non-cyclic elements. Most calendars incorporate more complex cycles. For example, the vast majority of them track years, months and days; the seven-day week is universal, though its use varies. It has run uninterrupted for millennia. Solar calendars assign a date to each solar day. A day may consist of the period between sunrise and sunset, with
Media related to Clotho (mythology) at Wikimedia Commons
Works related to Theogony at Wikisource
