Complex Numbers

Revisited: "Worst Year Ever"

No, the title isn't political commentary. My random selection of past entries yielded this bit from the end of 2018: "Worst Year Ever" 

The (very short) entry is basically a few comments on a link to an article from Science.org,   which is still available and claims that the year 536 C.E. was "the worst [year] to be alive."

My commentary back then was pretty much focused on praising the interdisciplinary science that produced this result. But now, six years on, I might have a few more things to say about the article itself.

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536."

"Worst" is obviously a matter of opinion. It's also dependent on the opinion-holder's experience and knowledge. Ask people what the worst movie ever made is, and you'll get a bunch of different answers, but none of them are definitive because I guarantee you none of them have seen every single movie ever made, and one person's "worst" may be another's "yeah, it was pretty bad."

In this case, we've got a guy whose area of focus seems to be medieval Europe, so his answer is understandably Eurocentric.

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months.

See? Nothing about North America, which had a decent population at the time, or anything in the Southern Hemisphere. It might have been a shitty time in those places, but maybe not the worst year to be alive. Especially for the native Americans or Australians.

Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years.

Hey, guys, I think I've figured out how to stop global warming. If we can't make a volcano go boom, there's always the similar effects of nuclear winter.

Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle.

Spoiler: volcanic eruptions in Iceland.

Probably. I mean, it's science, so results can have varying confidence levels, and I haven't seen any updated articles since then. Still, my main point remains: when different disciplines cross-reference each other, you get better science.