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by mkohlmyr
2908 days ago
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While you may think BC/AD is clunky, having a static reference point in the past obviously has its advantages. 200BC will forever correctly and uniquely reference the same year, 2218 YBP not so much, as it depends on year of writing (which is fine for a live interaction, but less handy for written and archived content). |
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As I understand it, the "present" in YBP refers to 68 years ago, 1950. This is related to the advent of carbon dating, and the way widescale nuclear tests altered the proportion of carbon isotopes found in nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present
Insofar as 68 years is a rounding error when discussing the Great Pyramids, YBP is a lot less clumsy. But 500 years from now it will probably begin seem just as clumsy as BC/AD. At least this time there is a pragmatic reason for the delineation (carbon 14 levels being altered.) Of course in 1,000 years you'll probably have people on hyper-reddit very smugly pointing out that nuclear testing actually started in 1945 not in 1950, just as today they point out Christ was not born in 0AD. ;)