Can you keep a secret Essay Example

Can you keep a secret Paper The two plays that I have chosen to compare are Road by Jim Cartwright and Can you keep a secret by Winsome Pinnock. Road had its theatrical debut in 1986, at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and was later adapted by the BBC to a film in 1987. Can you keep a secret was written in 1993 and was one of the many successful plays written by Winsome Pinnock. Road is a play that scopes into the lives of a number of people living down the same run-down, poverty stricken road. By use of a narrator, Scullery, we are introduced to all the main characters in the road and given a brief insight to their tragic and almost pathetic lives and pastimes, which mainly revolve around drink, drugs and sex. Can you keep a secret is a play about the after affects of a racist killing, particularly on a teenage girl who has to face up to a moral dilemma, whether to tell the truth or keep quiet for her boyfriend who is the murderer. The main theme that both plays have in common is the idea of loss of identity. In Road we see the loss of identity, people not knowing why they exist, not fighting for a better life or being who they want to be or once were. Long ago I gived up the idea of making a book, and instead, now I just give em out to people for the price of a pint or chips Here we have the Professor, (not a real one) whilst he introduces himself to the audience. We can see by his tone of voice and comment about his life that he is not the ambitious type, has given up on life and just takes what is given to him in terms of luck. A lot of the characters in Road have similar attitudes. Can you keep a secret talks about identity in a slightly different way. It demonstrates what many teenagers experience when growing up and learning what to do and what not to do. Teenagers are often faced with confusion about identity, particularly their own. This play demonstrates this, with many of the characters knowing inside them that something is wrong but not having the courage to face up to it. Letting others cloud their judgement. Were like Siamese twins. If one gets hurt the others feel it. Here one of the boys, Chunky, insisting on his loyalty to Sean after he just killed Derek. We will write a custom essay sample on Can you keep a secret specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Can you keep a secret specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Can you keep a secret specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer This sort of attitude, when concerning something as serious as a murder is very naive but is a common problem within teenage problems. The other themes in Road include depression, dis-satisfaction with ones life and existentialism. The idea of having a negative, and almost bitter view on life and being led to believe that life doesnt get any better or worse. Fucking long life init. This phrase is repeated throughout the play by different characters at the end of their scene directly to the audience, emphasising their attitude towards life. Can you keep a secret deals with other themes such as mateship and loyalty, racism and pier pressure. The ways in which the themes and story lines are put across in each play are very different. Road, rather then using a traditional beginning, middle and end structure it uses an episodic structure to demonstrate the themes of the play rather then a story line and subplot. Each character in Road has their own story to tell and they are briefly touched on throughout the whole play by use of lengthy, personal and emotive monologues and character to character dialogue. But all I did was go down. I lost my wife, me family, half me stomach, everything The professors monologue describes his life and struggles. Can you keep a secret however has a more conventional structure, and has more dialogue between characters to tell the story compared to Road. The whole script is interaction between characters to tell the story. You do not learn as much about the characters in Can you keep a secret as you do in Road as Road is based upon deeper analysis of characters and their lives by monologues and the characters talking directly to the audience and opening up to the audience. See how easy you can slip when youre a scientist in the slums. Professor, talking about his life, almost ashamed of his experiences. In Can you keep a secret there is no interaction with the audience and the audience are distanced from the characters and story. Whereas with Road the play breaks the 4th wall and the characters get fully involved with the audience on and off stage and talk direct to the audience in character. Which allows the audience to get a deeper understanding of each character.

The History of the Guillotine

The History of the Guillotine During the 1700s, executions in France were public events where entire towns gathered to watch. A common execution method for a poor criminal was quartering, where the prisoners limbs were tied to four oxen, then the animals were driven in four different directions ripping the person apart. Upper-class criminals could buy their way into a less painful death by hanging or beheading. The guillotine is an instrument for inflicting capital punishment by decapitation that came into common use in France after 1792 (during the French Revolution). In 1789, a French physician first suggested that all criminals should be executed by a â€Å"machine that beheads painlessly. Heritage Images / Getty Images Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin was born in Saintes, France in 1738 and elected to the French National Assembly in 1789. He belonged to a small political reform movement that wanted to banish the death penalty completely. Guillotin argued for a painless and private capital punishment method equal for all the classes, as an interim step towards completely banning the death penalty. Beheading devices had already been used in Germany, Italy, Scotland, and Persia for aristocratic criminals. However, never had such a device been adopted on a large institutional scale. The French named the guillotine after Doctor Guillotin. The extra e at the end of the word was added by an unknown English poet who found guillotine easier to rhyme with. Doctor Guillotin together with German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt, built the prototype for an ideal guillotine machine. Schmidt suggested using a diagonal blade instead of a round blade. Leon Berger Noted improvements to the guillotine machine were made in 1870 by the assistant executioner and carpenter Leon Berger. Berger added a spring system, which stopped the mouton at the bottom of the groves. He added a lock/blocking device at the lunette and a new release mechanism for the blade. All guillotines built after 1870 were made according to Leon Bergers construction. The French Revolution began in 1789, the year of the famous storming of the Bastille. On July 14 of the same year, King Louis XVI of France was driven from the French throne and sent into exile. The new civilian assembly rewrote the penal code to say, Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed. All classes of people were now executed equally. The first guillotining took place on April 25, 1792, when Nicolas Jacques Pelletie was guillotined at Place de Grà ¨ve on the Right Bank. Ironically, Louis XVI had his own head chopped off on January 21, 1793. Thousands of people were publicly guillotined during the French Revolution. The Last Guillotine Execution On September 10, 1977, the last execution by guillotine took place in Marseilles, France, when the murderer Hamida Djandoubi was beheaded. Guillotine Facts Total weight of a guillotine is about 1278 lbsThe guillotine metal blade weighs about 88.2 lbsThe height of guillotine posts average about 14 feetThe falling blade has a rate of speed of about 21 feet/secondJust the actual beheading takes 2/100 of a secondThe time for the guillotine blade to fall down to where it stops takes 70th of a second Prunier's Experiment In a scientific effort to determine if any consciousness remained following decapitation by the guillotine, three French doctors attended the execution of Monsieur Theotime Prunier in 1879, having obtained his prior consent to be the subject of their experimentation. Immediately after the blade fell on the condemned man, the trio retrieved his head and attempted to elicit some sign of intelligent response by shouting in his face, sticking in pins, applying ammonia under his nose, silver nitrate, and candle flames to his eyeballs. In response, they could record only that M Pruniers face bore a look of astonishment.

(choose one from the three topices) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

(choose one from the three topices) - Essay Example He asserts that human reason is his will, which government and other human institution should put first for better co-existence of the two. On the part of Marx, he argues that human reason should influence the changes that people prefer. He aims at showing that the most important thing in any society is the people. They form the institutions, thus the authorities’ and power rest on people. Freethinking and active emancipation of self conforms to Marx’s view on human reason. On the side of Machiavelli, having lived at a time of political instability, of sheer violence, war torn era characterized by betrayal and blackmail, he sees too little to rely on human reasoning (Machiavelli 25). He concludes human reason as wicked and merely a push for self-satisfaction. This paper will bring out the position of human reasoning according to the three personalities and its influence on government, property, and labor. Nicollo Machiavelli’s philosophy on human reason describes man as a fickle, unreliable creature. One should not trust his reasoning. He is content to dismiss men as a sad lot that will lie, cheat, and steal if this has benefit on them. Look at the issue of governance, Machiavelli believes that whoever comes to power is from the ordinary men. He is a prince who works his way out of the common lot of deceivers in the society. His reasoning is not far off, the lot which he was part of. Men reasoning according to Machiavelli are rich in qualities, which bring him praise or fame. Since the ruler in power or the prince is a man, he will exhibit the same reasoning behavioral to his subjects (Machiavelli 41). Thus, man is an indecisive creature. Machiavelli seems to argue that man cannot govern himself, and cannot subject a prince to conform to his reasoning. As a prince, one should put on remarkable qualities on public and wise enough not to expose his weaknesses to his subjects. If a prince depicts false strong character, then his people’ s reasoning will conclude he is indeed a good prince. By this notion, Machiavelli neglects the importance of human reasonin

Data Communication and Networking Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Data Communication and Networking - Assignment Example Using this method, a computer can bypass some access controls or servers or even imitate other computers on a certain network, thus a simple way to hack into the system. A man-in-the-middle attack through DHCP, also known as DHCP spoofing occurs when an attack is initiated, and the attacker tries to make DHCP requests responses by trying to enlist as the default server. In such a case, traffic is intercepted before it is forwarded to the user gateway. BEAST: This is a hacking tool developed in Delphi that infects Windows operating systems. BEAST operates in reverse engineering mode and gets the required codes. It utilizes some ports and can terminate the operations of an antivirus or even a firewall, to gain entry into a victim. RSA is an asymmetric public key algorithm whilst DES uses cipher that is old symmetric. RSA uses two keys, a public one and a private one whilst DES uses one key that is shared. DES can handle large chunks of data, a mechanism that is slow in RSA. Both are secret keys. PGP is standardized software that utilizes the former algorithms and others for operation. PGP is thus not an algorithm per se but has to use the other algorithms but perform the same encryption function (Keith,

Measurement and Instruments for a Quantitative Research Plan Coursework - 1

Measurement and Instruments for a Quantitative Research Plan - Coursework Example It is against this background that the levels of measurement to be selected for the study would follow the principle of ordinal scale of measurement. This means that grading shall be assigned to the students according to their performance rate. The levels of measurement shall therefore be a grading system to be tagged or labeled as ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘F’. As an ordinal scale, these levels of measurement shall be directly linked or related to the performance rate of students. In the given situation, students who score grade ‘A’ shall be given the classes they applied for whiles students who score ‘B’ shall be placed in one class below the class they applied for. Finally, students scoring ‘F’ shall be rejected a place in the schools. Given the levels of measurement that will be used in the study, the researcher shall design a multiple-indicator instrument or test. The multiple-indicator instrument will be used because it has the potential of ensuring validity on a number of scales. Cherry (2012) explains that â€Å"When a test has content validity, the items on the test represent the entire range of possible items the test should cover.† This means that the study shall ensure content validity by setting out questions to cover all aspects of the course content to be given to the students (Rodchua, 2009). By so doing, the test items shall represent the entire range of possible items because no aspect of the course content shall be left out. On empirical validity, it has been said that for empirical validity to be achieved, it is important that the researcher creates a criteria with which the results obtained can be compared for confirmation (Cheng, 2009). In the present study, the empirical validity can be measured by means of comparing the scores of the test, to the continuous assessment results that the students will bring from their respective

Freuds concepts and their value for contemporary psychology

Freuds concepts and their value for contemporary psychology Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is well known as the founder of psychoanalysis in psychiatry and is thought of by many as a key figure in psychology. Throughout his work Freud came up with numerous concepts and theories, many of which still cause a lot of debate amongst psychologists. In this essay I will discuss some of Freuds key concepts including; development of personality, personality structures and defence mechanisms. After which I will attempt to assess their significance in modern psychology and conclude whether or not I believe Freuds concepts are of value to contemporary psychology and if we should continue to look into his work. One key concept developed by Freud is the development of personality. He came up with five distinct stages, known as the psychosexual stage, to describe how our personalities develop from birth to about 18 years of age. He places particular emphasis on the development of sexual drives and how this shapes our personalities. Furthermore, each stage has a region, known as the erogenous zone, where the libidinal energy is focused. The five stages are: Oral stage (birth one year old), in this stage Freud (1901) suggests that events around feeding are the focal point of pleasure for the infant, the erogenous zone includes the lips, mouth and tongue (Maltby, Day and Macaskill; 2007). Anal stage (1year -2 years), Freud believed that bowel movement gives the baby sensual pleasure, also at this stage the child is rewarded for bladder and bowel control (Maltby et al., 2007). The anal region becomes the new erogenous zone. Phallic stage (3 years -5 years), at this stage the child starts to mature physiologically and the libidinal energy is transferred to genital region (new erogenous zone). At this stage gratification is gained from masturbation (Maltby et al., 2007). Freud thought that girls experienced what he called penis envy as they become aware that boys have penises and the do not. In addition, boys become sexually aware of their mother and start to view their father as a sexual rival (and experience castration anxiety fear of losing their penis), this is known as the Oedipal complex. Latency stage (5 years -12 years) can be seen as a resting period of the psychosexual stage. Social interactions are most important in this stage, children develop friendships with same sexed peers, as well as, identifying with the same sexed parent (Maltby et al., 2007) resulting in socialisation of gender roles. Genital stage (12 years +) as this stage puberty begins, which reawakens the libidinal energy, resulting in a more mature sexual attachment, in normal development the main sexual objects are members of the opposite sex (Maltby et al., 2007). Freud also developed the idea of personality structures. He identifies three personality structures that develop in every person, these are the; ID (present from birth), EGO and superEGO (these two form later on in development). The ID is the primitive, pleasure seeking part of the personality, it strives for immediate gratification (i.e. I want X and I want it now!). The EGO plays an important role as the mediator and is the rational aspect of our personalities (i.e. You will find a way to get X, just be patient). Finally the superEGO is the moral, guilt driven side of the personality which then becomes our conscience (i.e. You cant have X because its wrong). And finally I will talk about defence mechanisms, a well-known concept developed by Freud. Defence mechanisms can be described as the minds way of protecting itself from unacceptable or painful thoughts, as well as, conflict from the three personality structures. Freud mentions eleven defence mechanisms: Repression, denial, projection, reaction formation, rationalisation, conversion reaction, phobic avoidance, displacement, regression, isolation and undoing. The two most known defences are: repression the idea that we push undesirable thoughts, feelings and impulses from our conscious mind into our unconscious in order to shield ourselves from pain and protect our self-esteem. In other words Freud saw repression as the Ego and superEGOs way of supressing the ID. Denial is simply when we refuse to face certain situations or realities as we do not find them acceptable. Cramer (1991) states that the boundaries between these two defence mechanisms are often hard to distinguish between (cited in Baumeister, Dale and Sommer Freudian Defence mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology; 1998). The next part of the essay will aim to assess the value of some of Freuds work in contemporary psychology. The concept of personality development is solely based on how libidinal instincts shape us. Maltby, Day and Macaskill (2007), state that Freud does not meet the parsimony criteria in his explanation of the motivational basis of behaviour, Freud implies that sexual and aggressive instincts are the only motivators of human behaviour (Maltby et al., 2007). The psychosexual stages, do not fully explain human behaviour as they are highly reductionist and ignore the complexity of the human mind, as well as, being bias in only emphasising one aspect as the basis of all behaviour, therefore, it can be said that they are of little value to contemporary psychology. Freud also identified problems that may occur as a result of fixation in anyone of the five psychosexual stages. He then developed treatment, known as free association, which would allow the patients to resolve their emotional conflicts, which involved catharsis, where the patients discharged their emotions by speaking freely about anything they want, leading to resolution of these issues. This method has been widely reviewed and is still used in contemporary psychology. Greenberg (2002) concluded that emotional arousal and processing within a supportive therapeutic relationship is the core element for positive change in therapy. He emphasized the cognitive aspect of catharsis and the need to understand and make sense of emotions. (Esta Powell; 2007). Free association is replicable making it reliable and has many applications to contemporary psychology making it valid. Conversely, much of Freuds work on the psychosexual stages was largely based on his interpretations of observations of young children or self-reports of dreams and thoughts. Freud used Little Hans primarily to support his theory of the Oedipus complex (Jennifer Stuart; 2007). Critics contend that Freuds theory is lacking in empirical evidence and relies too heavily on therapeutic achievements, whereas others assert that even Freuds clinical data are flawed, inaccurate, and selective at best (Beystehner; 1998). Thus, the validity of his work is very much in question. As these concepts, such as the psychosexual stages, cannot be operationalized and tested they are not falsifiable and are of little relevance to contemporary research. Many of Freuds theories are simple in a way that they are not comprised of many concepts, for example, his theory on personality structure consists of three clearly definable structures. In this sense his work can be said to be parsimonious and has formed a basis for further research. According to Dangleish and Power (1999) the personality structure purposed by Freud has face validity as we are all aware of anxiety and conflicts in everyday life decision making (as cited in Maltby, Day and Macaskill, Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence; 2007: 34). Face validity implies that there is support for his theory on personality structures, and so this theory can be operationalized and tested to see how personalities coexist within us and data from these tests can have practical applications. Furthermore, Freuds work on defence mechanisms was widely accepted and leads to follow up research, such as that by Brewin and Andrews. After reviewing this area of psychology, Brewin and Andrews (1998) concluded that 20% to 60% of therapy patients who had been victims of sexual abuse in their childhood reported not being able to recall being abused for large periods of time in their lives (cited in Maltby et al., Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence; 2007: 36,37). This shows us that the mind does use methods, such as repression, to protect itself from indecent memories. This shows falsifiability as it is replicable and has practical applications in life which can be used and developed in contemporary psychology. Freuds work is very controversial and has provoked enormous debate, much of which has led to the development of novel ideas in psychology. Not only has his work been expanded upon and developed (e.g. to better treatment of mental patients) but many breakthroughs have been made in trying to disprove his theories. Although many of Freuds theories are subjective and based on his interpretation of dreams and thoughts which cannot be empirically tested, he has made many valuable contributions to psychology. These include the use of defence mechanisms and the idea of personality structures, both of which have supporting evidence from contemporary psychologists, e.g. Brewin and Andrews (1998) work supports the concept of defence mechanisms. As well as this he created clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology, developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and concluded dreams are the primary insight into the unconscious mind. All of these have ha d practical applications and have formed the foundation of contemporary psychology. Thus, I believe that it is potent that Freuds theories and concepts continue to be revised. Referencing: Maltby, J., Day, L Macaskill, A. (2007). Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence (2nd Ed.). London: Prentice Hall Baumeister, R.F., Dale, K. Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian Defence mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction Formal, Projection, Displacement, Undoing, Isolation, Sublimation and Denial. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Stuart, J. (2007). Little Hans and Freuds Self-Analysis: A Biographical View of Clinical Theory in the Making, 55, (3), 799-819. Beystehner, K. M. (1998). Psychoanalysis: Freuds revolutionary approach to human personality. Retrieved October 22, 2010, from Personality Papers Web site: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html Powell, E. (2007). Catharsis in Psychology and Beyond: A Historical overview. Visited on October 25, 2010, Web site: http://www.primalmatters.com/images/Catharsis%20.pdf

Ancient Calendars Essays -- essays research papers

Time Keepers Celestial bodies - the sun, moon, planets, and stars - have provided us a reference for measuring the passage of time throughout human existence. Ancient civilizations like: China, India, Babylon, and Greece relied upon the apparent motion of these bodies through the sky to record and determine seasons, months, and years. We know little about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras. However, records and artifacts usually uncover that in every culture, people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. Stonehenge, built over 4000 years ago in England has no written records, but its alignments show its purposes apparently included the determination of seasonal or celestial events, such as lunar eclipses, solstices and so on. As time has passed so has the evolution of the calendar, a device created to track our time and seasons from the earliest recordings in Babylonia to the Gregorian calendar the history of this transformation is and interesting journey. The earliest know calendar to keep track of the cycles of the celestial bodies was an Egyptian calendar that was based on the moon's cycles and is thought to have been created in 4236 B.C.E. Many cultures and societies have embraced the idea of tracking time and seasons as they pass for a myriad of reasons, â€Å"Seafarers needed to navigate their vessels, and farmers had to know when to plant their crops.† (Chaisson / McMillan p.30) The Chinese are credited with having invented the second oldest method of time keeping; Emperor Huangdi implemented the Chinese legend in 2637 B.C.E.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Babylonia (where modern day Iraq can be found) is attributed with having some of the earliest surviving records of astronomical observations. It is believed, ‘†¦Babylonian astronomical knowledge spread far and wide – to the East, to Persia, and to the Mediterranean.† (Richards p. 38) However, the knowledge that was disbursed was not treasured by all that received it, in the Mediterranean the Greeks improved upon the theories of the Babylonians. The Greek’s theories were recorded; however, when Rome over-took most of Europe the records fell into the hands of the Christian church. When Constantine was Emperor of Rome he declared Christianity to be the official religion of the empire; thus, giving the church officials the power to decide the validity of the recordin... ...ius (1537-1612), he signed a papal bull and that was followed by, â€Å"The actual change over to the new calendar took place the following year on 4 October. After 350 years or more the reform had at last been accomplished.† (Richards p.246) Furthermore the rule for leap years (which said that years divisible with 4 should be leap years) was changed so that years, at the end of the century, should be leap years only if they were divisible with 400 (e.g. 1600, 2000, 2400 etc.) In the Gregorian Calendar there is then 303 years with 365 days and 97 years with 366 days, which gives a mean year of 365.24250 days: 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Related to the mean interval between vernal equinoxes this corresponds to a slippage of less than one hour in every 300 years for the foreseeable future - until circa 4000 AD. Chaisson, Eric and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. New Jersey: Prentice   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hall, 1999. Evenson, A.E. About the History of the Calendar. Canada: Regensteiner   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Publishing, 1972. Richards, E. G. Mapping Time, The Calendar and its History. New York: Oxford   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  University Press, 1998. Ancient Calendars Essays -- essays research papers Time Keepers Celestial bodies - the sun, moon, planets, and stars - have provided us a reference for measuring the passage of time throughout human existence. Ancient civilizations like: China, India, Babylon, and Greece relied upon the apparent motion of these bodies through the sky to record and determine seasons, months, and years. We know little about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras. However, records and artifacts usually uncover that in every culture, people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. Stonehenge, built over 4000 years ago in England has no written records, but its alignments show its purposes apparently included the determination of seasonal or celestial events, such as lunar eclipses, solstices and so on. As time has passed so has the evolution of the calendar, a device created to track our time and seasons from the earliest recordings in Babylonia to the Gregorian calendar the history of this transformation is and interesting journey. The earliest know calendar to keep track of the cycles of the celestial bodies was an Egyptian calendar that was based on the moon's cycles and is thought to have been created in 4236 B.C.E. Many cultures and societies have embraced the idea of tracking time and seasons as they pass for a myriad of reasons, â€Å"Seafarers needed to navigate their vessels, and farmers had to know when to plant their crops.† (Chaisson / McMillan p.30) The Chinese are credited with having invented the second oldest method of time keeping; Emperor Huangdi implemented the Chinese legend in 2637 B.C.E.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Babylonia (where modern day Iraq can be found) is attributed with having some of the earliest surviving records of astronomical observations. It is believed, ‘†¦Babylonian astronomical knowledge spread far and wide – to the East, to Persia, and to the Mediterranean.† (Richards p. 38) However, the knowledge that was disbursed was not treasured by all that received it, in the Mediterranean the Greeks improved upon the theories of the Babylonians. The Greek’s theories were recorded; however, when Rome over-took most of Europe the records fell into the hands of the Christian church. When Constantine was Emperor of Rome he declared Christianity to be the official religion of the empire; thus, giving the church officials the power to decide the validity of the recordin... ...ius (1537-1612), he signed a papal bull and that was followed by, â€Å"The actual change over to the new calendar took place the following year on 4 October. After 350 years or more the reform had at last been accomplished.† (Richards p.246) Furthermore the rule for leap years (which said that years divisible with 4 should be leap years) was changed so that years, at the end of the century, should be leap years only if they were divisible with 400 (e.g. 1600, 2000, 2400 etc.) In the Gregorian Calendar there is then 303 years with 365 days and 97 years with 366 days, which gives a mean year of 365.24250 days: 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Related to the mean interval between vernal equinoxes this corresponds to a slippage of less than one hour in every 300 years for the foreseeable future - until circa 4000 AD. Chaisson, Eric and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. New Jersey: Prentice   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hall, 1999. Evenson, A.E. About the History of the Calendar. Canada: Regensteiner   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Publishing, 1972. Richards, E. G. Mapping Time, The Calendar and its History. New York: Oxford   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  University Press, 1998.