Dear John, You argue this issue very well. I have interspersed some remarks.
on 2002-08-12 04.54, kilopascal at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2002-08-11 > > I think that the controversy with the calendar has a lot to do with how it > is to be set up. It is even important how the debate is set up. Most argue from a mindset that has a favored unit. This is usually the year, regularly the month, rarely the week, and almost never the fortnight. Unfortunately, your sensible suggestion to use the SI unit of time, the second, is never used. > Traditionalist and even to some extent calendar reformers > try to connect the measuring of time with the rotation of the earth around > the sun (year), the rotation of the moon around the earth (month) and the > rotation of the earth about its own axis (day). Any attempt to revise the > present calendar, yet keeping these constraints on it is doomed to failure. All of these issues have been dealt with, in enormous detail, by some of the world's greatest thinkers. Some of these, Hipparchus, Zhang Heng, Augustine of Hippo, the maker of the Arybhata, Hermann the Lame, Omar Khayyam, Abraham bar Hiyya ha-Nasi, and the makers of the 'Calendar of Reason', show the range of people (and the range of cultures) that have been involved in the calendar enterprise. [I commend to you, 'The Calendar' by David Ewing Duncan, which gives an eminently readable account of 'The 500-Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens � and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days'.] I have included Duncan's 'Calendar Index at the bottom of this posting. It seems to me that the word 'heavens' has always been important in this debate � the discussion has never been short of deep religious significance. Augustine of Hippo, for example, with his belief in 'Sacred Time' almost completely skittled calendars for ever. Were it not for the need to know when the date of Easter occurred, we might not have a calendar at all. > A true metric (SI) calendar would have to be totally independent of these > constraints. Cycles of the planets in this solar system and the stars would > have to be totally ignored. A true SI calendar in the sense of "cycles" > then in actuality could not exist. What would exist is the use of the > already existent SI unit the second. <snip> I have no comments to make on the issue of when a calendar should begin � or should have already begun! > As far as I see, calendar reform is a moot issue. We are wasting out time > even thinking about it unless we plan to adopt the true SI unit to measure > time. As long as we are restricted to measuring time via the sun, the moon > and the stars, our present calendar is totally useful and in no need of > reforming. Those who do ponder reform have yet to show me a truly workable > "calendar" that is superior enough to the present one to cause us all to > change. I agree with Bill Potts. I think that as far as we need go with calendar reform is to 'the one with 30-, 30- and 31-day months in each quarter, with an unnumbered World Day (or some such) to make up the 365, plus an unnumbered Leap Day (probably between the new February 30 and March 1, to satisfy tradition) every four years. World Day would possibly be between December 31 and January 1.' My only disagreement here would be for World Day to occur between August and September. This would give symmetry to each fourth year and it would make the idea easier to sell, in the Northern hemisphere, as an extra day for your Summer holidays. Cheers, Pat Naughtin CAMS Geelong, Australia Duncan's Calendar Index Length of the (tropical) year in 2000 AD: 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds Time that the year has slowed since AD 1: 10 seconds Average decrease in the year due to a gradual slowing of the earth's rotation: 0.5 seconds per century Lunar Month: 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.9 seconds The earliest known date: 4236 BC, the founding of the Egyptian calendar Ancient Egyptian year: 365 1/4 days Early Chinese year: 354 days (lunar year) with days added at intervals to keep the Chinese lunar calendar aligned with the seasons. Early Greek year: 354 days, with days added Jewish year: 354 days, with days added Early Roman year: 304 days, amended in 700 BC to 355 days The year according to Julius Caesar (the Julian calendar): 365 1/4 days Date Caesar changed Roman year to Julian calendar: 1 January 45 BC Amount of time the old Roman calendar was misaligned with the solar year as designated by Caesar: 80 days Total length Of 45 BC, known as the 'Year of Confusion,' after adding 80 days: 445 days The year as amended by Pope Gregory XIII (the Gregorian calendar): 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 20 seconds Date Pope Gregory reformed the calendar: 1582 Length of time the Julian calendar overestimates the solar year per year, as determined by Pope Gregory: 11 minutes, 14 seconds Number of days Pope Gregory removed to correct the calendar's drift: 10 Dates Gregory eliminated by papal bull to realign his calendar with the solar year: 5-14 October 1582 Dates most Catholic countries accepted the Gregorian calendar: 1582-1584 Date Protestant Germany accepted the Gregorian calendar: partial acceptance in 1700, full acceptance in 1775 Date Great Britain (and the American colonies) accepted the Gregorian calendar: 1752 Length of time eliminated by the British Parliament to realign the old calendar (Julian) with the Gregorian calendar: 11 days Dates Parliament eliminated: 3-13 September 1752 Date Japan accepted the Gregorian calendar: 1873 Date Russia accepted the Gregorian calendar: 1917 (and again in 1940) Date China accepted the Gregorian calendar: 1949 Date the Eastern Orthodox Church last voted to reject the Gregorian calendar and retain the Julian calendar: 1971 Length of time the Gregorian calendar is off from the true solar year: 25.96768 seconds per year Length of time the Gregorian calendar has become misaligned over the 414 years since Gregory's reform in 1582: 2 hours, 59 minutes, 12 seconds Year in which the Gregorian calendar will be one day ahead of the true solar year: AD 4909 Year that Atomic Time replaced Earth Time as the world's official time standard: 1972 The year as measured in oscillations of atomic cesium: 290 091 200 500 000 000
