I’d like to explain my timescales here.
The earth is thought to be around 4.55 billion years old. Call it 4,550 million years old. Or 4,550,000,000 years old. Or what have you.
My fellowship at MIT lasts until mid-May. Right around my birthday. And around the time when my brother is expecting his 2nd child to be born. And that’s about 4.5 months from now. So we’ll call it 4 months plus 15 days. Or 135 days, since this year January, February, March and April have an average of 30 days, rather conveniently.
Not that this helps explain anything.
Okay, so 4,550,000,000 divided by 135 = 33,703,703 years per day. In other words:
- a day of Ian Time equals 33.7 million years of Earth Time;
- an hour of Ian Time equals 1.4 million years of Earth Time;
- a minute of Ian Time equals 23,405 years of Earth Time;
- a second of Ian Time equals 390 years of Earth Time.
Looking ahead towards some big events this year, I’ve got to mark my calendar for:
- January 19th — the Late Heavy Bombardment — will there be a hailstorm?
- March 1st — the Great Oxidization Event — avoid Beijing
- May 7th — the end-Permian Extinction — avoid Siberian volcanoes
Just to name a few. We wouldn't want to give everything away!