What is the Year 2038 Problem?

The Year 2038 problem (also referred to as the Y2K38 bug) refers to a problem that some computer systems might encounter when dealing with times past 2038-01-19 03:14:07.

Many computer systems, such as Unix and Unix-based systems, don’t calculate time using the Gregorian calendar. They calculate time as the number of seconds since 1 January 1970. Therefore, in these systems, time is represented as a big number (i.e. the number of seconds passed since 1970-01-01 00:00:00). This is typically referred to as Epoch time, Unix time, Unix Epoch time, or POSIX time. As I write this, Unix time is 1560913841. And as I write this next line, Unix time has incremented to 1560913879.

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What is Normalization?

Normalization is the process of organizing a database to reduce redundancy and improve data integrity.

Normalization also simplifies the database design so that it achieves the optimal structure composed of atomic elements (i.e. elements that cannot be broken down into smaller parts).

Also referred to as database normalization or data normalization, normalization is an important part of relational database design, as it helps with the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of the database.

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