| Fractal Time Software Documentation |
| The Menu Options |
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- Calendar
As is well known, the current European calendar, the Gregorian calendar, superseded an earlier European calendar, the Julian calendar. When specifying dates it makes a difference which calendar you use. For example, in order to tell the program that we want to look at the wave at the time Columbus discovered the New World we might specify the target date (explained below) as, say, 1492-10-12 (October 12th, 1492). But is this a date in the Gregorian calendar or in the Julian calendar? Since Columbus recorded the date of the discovery in the ship's log it must have been a date in the Julian calendar (since in 1492 the Gregorian calendar had not yet been invented).
Similar remarks apply to every historical date prior to 1582-10-15 (Gregorian) such as the coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas day in the year 800. 800-12-25 in the Julian calendar is the same day as 800-12-29 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.
We can refer to a day over 1000 years ago by means of a date in the Gregorian calendar even though the Gregorian calendar had not been invented at that time. This is done simply by projecting the Gregorian dating system back beyond the time of its invention. For example, even though the Gregorian calendar was put into effect on 1582-10-15 (Gregorian) we can still say that the date of the day one year before was 1581-10-15 (Gregorian), even though people alive on that day would have said that the date was 1581-10-5 (Julian). Similarly, dates after 1582-10-15 (Gregorian) have equivalent, but different, dates in the Julian calendar. For example, the customary date in the Gregorian calendar of the zero point, 2012-12-21, corresponds to 2012-12-8, in the Julian calendar.
Thus any day in the history of the Earth, either in the past or in the future, can be specified as a date in either of the two calendrical systems. The dates will generally be different.
In the Timewave Zero software years are designated according to the astronomical convention, as follows: 1 A.D. =Year 1, 1 B.C. = Year 0, 2 B.C. = Year -1, and so on More generally, a year popularly designated n B.C. is designated in Timewave Theory as Year -(n-1). Thus to convert a year B.C. to an astronomical year simply subtract one and prefix a minus sign. To convert an astronomical year preceding 1 to a year B.C. simply remove the minus sign and add one. Note that in the common designation there is no year designated 0 A.D. or 0 B.C.; the year preceding 1 A.D. is the year 1 B.C.
For more on these calendars see The Julian and Gregorian Calendars.
The zero date usually chosen previously to anchor the timewave to the historical record was 2012-12-21 G (December 21st, 2012, Gregorian Calendar), the date of the winter solstice in 2012 and (according to some Maya scholars) the date of the end of the current era of 13 baktuns in the Maya Calendar.
The default zero date when the software first starts up is 2012-12-21, and the default number set is the Kelley number set.
It is easy to work with other values, if preferred. Simply change the values on the various screens to the preferred values, then, when the program terminates, these values will be saved. On the next run the screens should have the same values.
Since 2012-12-21 is the default zero date in all screens you do not have to specify the zero date unless you want to change it. If you do, select option B and enter day, month and year (or month, day and year, if you prefer U.S. date format). Most dates with year in the range -998 through 9998 are acceptable as a zero date.
In order to facilitate switching between the Huang Ti timewaves and the others, if the Gregorian Calendar is specified then selecting the zero date brings up the question:
1=12/21/2012, 2=7/16/2055, 3=another date Selecting "1" switches to the zero date associated with the Kelley timewave; "2" gives the zero date associated with the Huang Ti timewave.
It is possible to specify a zero date as a date plus a certain number of days. To do this, select option B and enter the date, but before pressing Enter at the year entry add, for example, "+ 1496 days". The new zero date will be calculated automatically.
Timewave Theory postulates a compression of temporal cycles as the zero point is approached. The final 67.29 years prior to the zero point is alleged to be a re-enactment in some way of the preceding 4306.27-year (64 x 67.29) and 275,601-year (64 x 4306.27) cycles. (For more on this see Resonances.)
The target date is the date you are interested in, or a date within the timespan that you are interested in. It can be specified in two ways, either as a date or as a number of days prior to the zero date (as explained below).
If you wish to set the target date equal to the zero date (perhaps after moving the target date indicator to the far right of the graph using the End key) then enter "0" (zero) at the first prompt for the target date (that is, for the day or for the month of the target date).
The earliest year permitted in the target date is c. 7,000,000,000 years ago (the formation of the Earth occurred about 4,500,000,000 years ago). The target date cannot be later than the zero date.
If the zero date is specified then a target date can be specified as a day which is a certain number of days prior to the zero date. When entering such numbers you can include commas in large numbers, as in 25,342,123,217. You may also enter non-integral values, such as 1.5.
You may care to inspect the wave around a target date corresponding to a number of days to the zero date which is itself arithmetically interesting, for example, a power of 6 or of 64. Interesting features of the wave tend to occur when the number of days to the zero date is a multiple of a power of 2 and one or more prime numbers.
In Timewave Theory, in contrast to the current convention, a day is reckoned to begin at dawn, or rather at 6 a.m. This is adopted because, as far as daily energy cycles are concerned, dawn and secondarily dusk are generally the two times in each day of greatest change and novelty.
The number of days prior to the zero point is always calculated from 6 a.m. on the zero date. Thus, for example, if the zero date is taken to be 2012-12-21 then the point exactly ten days prior to the zero point is 6 a.m. on 2012-12-11.
The timewave is generated on the basis of a set of 384 numbers. The software allows use of four such sets, called the 'Kelly', 'Watkins, 'Sheliak' and 'HuangTi' number sets. The numbers in these sets may be seen by selecting 'D, Number set' and 'D, display'.
Select E at the menu to specify the timespan that you want the graph to cover. The maximum timespan permitted is a little over seven billion years and the minimum is 1 hour and 32 minutes. When you select the Timespan option the software first prompts you with Years:. If you wish to specify a timespan of, say, four days, then simply press the Enter key until the prompt Days: appears, then enter "4".
You can enter values for the timespan as numbers of (i) years, months and days, (ii) months, days and hours, (iii) days, hours and minutes or (iv) hours and minutes To specify a timespan of, for example, two months and three hours press Enter at Years:, enter "2" at Months:, press Enter at days: and enter "3" at hours:.
When the zero date, target date and timespan have all been specified you can graph the wave using the F option.
The values displayed on the vertical axis show the range of values for the graph as plotted over the timespan visible on-screen. Only eight characters are available to display the vertical axis labels. Thus if the range is very small, and the vertical axis values are very large, the vertical axis labels may not differ in the first eight digits, and thus all the vertical axis labels will be the same.
This allows you to copy an image of the graph to the clipboard so that you can subsequently paste it into a program which supports graphic images, e.g. Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Draw, LView Pro and Paint Shop Pro (and even Microsoft WordPad).
When you select this option some unneccesary text is removed from the screen and the black background is converted to a white background. Follow the on-screen instructions (and when these disappear, after the first keypress) press the Print-Scrn key. This copies the screen to the clipboard. Press another key to restore the screen to its usual appearance.
The black-and-white image can then be be pasted into a graphics program such as Paint Shop Pro or LView Pro, which can be used to create a transparent GIF.
The usual graphical display is the one in which the further back in time one goes the larger the Novelty value of the timewave. In this representation Novelty increases as the value of the wave decreases, reaching a "maximum Novelty" of zero at the zero point. Or, as stated elsewhere in this documentation:
The Novelty values on the y-axis increase from bottom to top, as is usual with Cartesian graphs. But Novelty is such that low values of Novelty are associated with high incidence of its "real world" counterpart in history and vice versa. Thus the "descent" of the wave from high values of Novelty in the past to low values in the present is claimed to be reflected in time and history by a low incidence of its phenomenal correlate in the past developing toward high incidence in the present (and future).There is an alternate, but equivalent, way of representing Novelty which some may prefer because in this representation Novelty is very low at times distant in the past and gradually increases with time, tending toward infinity at the zero point.
If t() is the timewave function then we can define a logarithmic transformation of t() as follows: t'(x) = -log(1/t(x)) for x > 0. (t' is undefined for x = 0 because it is infinitely large.) The software uses the logarithm to the base 10. The graph of t'() resembles many graphs of processes occurring in the last few hundred years, e.g. the rise of the Earth's human population and the U.S. general price level. Thus this representation of the timewave allows easier comparison with graphs representing such processes. You can tell which representation of the graph is in use by looking at Option H on the screen, where upward or downward will be displayed in yellow.
The subject of Timewave Theory resonances requires detailed explanation, which is given in Resonances
.
This option has three sub-options. You may print: (i) Values (the values of the wave as displayed), (ii) Resonances (a report of dates which stand in certain resonance relations to the target date), and (iii) Screens (a report of the configurations of the twelve screens).
Note, however, that sending data directly to a printer is possible only when the program is run under DOS, not when it is run under Windows (95/98/NT). When running the software under Windows the program may hang if you try to write to the printer. Instead you can choose to write to a file, then load the file into a text editor and print it from there.
- Values
If you wish to know exactly what the values are at each of the pixel positions (0 through 368) you can use this option to print them. There are three possibilities for printing the wave values. First you are asked if you wish to print only the values at the turning points (the local maxima and minima). If you answer "No," then you are asked if you wish to print values only in the vicinity of the target date. If you answer "No," then all values will be printed (this will produce six or seven pages of printout). If you answer "Yes," to the second question then values for about one-ninth of the graph will be printed.
Since the wave is a fractal, the general direction of the wave in the neighborhood of any point depends on the size of that neighborhood. The wave in the neighborhood of a given point may appear to be descending, but when a narrower (or wider) neighborhood is considered the wave may appear to be rising in that area.
Finally the program asks whether you wish to send the values to the printer or to a file. You can press Enter or Escape at this point if you decide you don't want to continue. If you wish to write the values to a file then specify the filename, e.g. VALUES.TXT.
- Resonance points
See Resonances for an explanation of printing resonance points.
- Screens
This sub-option prints the following for each screen (if the target date has been specified): The start date (the date at the left of the graph), the target date, the end date (the date at the right), the zero date and the timespan. These dates are also given as the number of days prior to the zero date. The target position is given, that is, the position of the target date as a percentage of the timespan. A target position of 0% means the target date coincides with the start date, 100% means the target date coincides with the end date, 50% means the target date is in the middle of the graph. Finally, the wave factor and the type of graph (upward-trending or downward-trending) is given.
While manipulating the graph you may wish to preserve a copy of it. Or you may wish to copy a graph to another screen in order to manipulate it further there. Simply press "K" and tell the program what screen (1 through 12) you wish to copy the graph to. If there is already a graph defined in the target screen then you will be informed and can either cancel or proceed with the copy.
When you choose option L you are asked whether you wish to load or to save the screen set (the set of eleven screens numbered 1 through 11; the 12th screen can't be saved). If you choose to save the screens the configurations of target date, etc., for the eleven screens can be saved to a file on disk to be reloaded later (see below). The usual name for the save-file is LASTRvvv.SCR (where vvv is the version number of the software), but you can save the screens to a file of another name if you wish. This allows you to work with multiple sets of screen data.
If you choose to load a screen set you will be asked for the name of the file in which the set was saved.
This option allows you to add a title to a screen. The title replaces the usual "Fractal Time" which by default appears on the top line. For example, if you graph the hundred years centered on 1500 you might also wish to add the title "European Renaissance" as the title.
If you wish to remove a title then select this option and press Enter when asked to enter a title. The default title will then be displayed on the top line.
A title may be added to screen 12, but since this screen is not saved when the set of screens is saved (see L above) the title will also not be saved.
When you select this option you will be asked if you wish to remove the target date. If you answer N then the graph will be erased and the timespan will be cleared; you can then reposition the target date using the left- and right-arrow keys. If you answer Y then the graph will be erased, the target date and timespan will be cleared and the position of the target date will be reset to 50%.
The timewave is defined by the formula:
1 infinity v(x*a^i) t(x) = --- * [ SIGMA ------- ] a^3 i=-infinity a^iIn this formula a denotes the so-called "wave factor". For all four built-in timewaves a = 64. Other timewaves using another value, e.g. 32 or 60, are possible. The smallest value of a that can be used with the software is 24 and the largest is 68.For more details see The Mathematical Definition of the Timewave.
Use of this option allows you to toggle between U.S. date format (e.g. 12/21/2012) and the date format used in Europe — U.K. date format — (e.g. 21.12.2012). Dates are given in the specified format in the printed reports also.
Option Q is for exiting from the program . Pressing the Escape key has the same effect.
This brings up a screen with brief explanations of these menu options.
Copyright 1999,2006 Peter Meyer
| Fractal Time Software |