CALENDAR

From Philosopedia

CALENDAR

The earliest calendars were naturally crude. The earth completes its orbit about the sun in 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds, whereas the moon passes through its phases in about 29 1/2 days, amounting to more than 354 days 8 hours 48 minutes.

The discrepancy between the years is inescapable, and a major problem in devising a calendar has been to harmonize the solar and lunar reckonings. (If God really exists, humanists jocularly explain, He is an exceedingly poor mathematician.)

The Egyptians worked out a formula for the solar year (12 months of 30 days each, five extra days a year, and an extra day every four years).

The Ancient Jews dated their calendar from Creation, Ancient Greeks dated theirs from the first Olympic Games, and Islam from the flight from Mecca. The old Chinese calendar was devised to have six 60-day cycles, each cycle having 10-day periods and three such periods going to make up a month. It will be 4698, Year of the Dragon, in China when it is 2000 in Chicago. The Maya divided the year into eighteen 20-day periods, with a 5-day period at the end—they brilliantly began each month using a day 0, not day 1. The Romans dated their calendar from the foundation of Rome by the legendary Romulus. Ad Urbe Condita–from the foundation of the city–was pegged at 753 B.C.E. When Rome emerged as a world power, superstition held that even numbers were unlucky, so the Roman calendar has months that were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February, which had 28. However, four months of 31 days, seven months of 29 days, and one month of 28 days added up to only 355 days. Therefore, they invented an extra month–Mercedonius–of 22 or 23 days, which was added every second year.

Julius Caesar, being advised by astronomers that the Roman calendar was far off, ordered a sweeping reform in 45: One year, made 445 days long by imperial decree, brought the calendar back in step with the seasons. Then the solar year (with the value of 365 days and 6 hours) was made the basis of the calendar. Every fourth year was made a 366-day year. Caesar also decreed that the year should begin with the first of January, not with the vernal equinox in late March. This calendar, the Julian, is still the calendar of the Eastern Orthodox churches. Unfortunately, the year is 11 1/2 minutes shorter than the figure written in Caesar’s calendar, and after a number of centuries, even those few minutes add up. Meanwhile, from 20 B.C.E. to 20 C.E. is not 40 years: it is 39 inasmuch as there was no Year Zero.

Around 1600, when Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It described the world as “almost 6,000 years old,” she was somewhat echoing Archbishop James Ussher, who in 1564 had authoritatively given the time of creation as having been 4,004 B. C. E. Roger Bacon once sent a memorandum in the 1200s to Pope Clement IV that although Caesar could decree that the vernal equinox should not be used as the first day of the new year, the vernal equinox is still a fact of Nature.

By the 16th century, time had displaced the vernal equinox to March 11th from March 21st. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII rectified this error by suppressing 10 days in the year 1582 and ordained that thereafter the years ending in hundreds should not be leap years unless they were divisible by 400. The year 1600 was a leap year under both systems, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were leaps years only in the unreformed calendar. The present generally accepted calendar is called the Gregorian. The reform was not accepted in England and the British colonies in America until 1752.

The Gregorian was called the New Style (N.S.) and the Julian the Old Style (O.S). George Washington’s birthday, therefore is 22 February 1732 (N.S.) and 11 February 1731 (O.S.). Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone reads:

Born April 2, 1743 O.S. Died July 4, 1826.

A “fixed” 13-month “civil” cosmic calendar has been proposed for the first day of the 21st century, 31 December 2000. As described by William H. Becker (Mensa Bulletin, March 1995), the calendar’s first regular weekday would be Monday, with all weeks starting on Monday and ending on Sunday. Becker’s 13-month calendar re-names all the months and is astronomically sound. It has quarters of 91 days (13 weeks), and Leap Years are any year evenly divisible by four, except that years ending in “00” are Leap Years only if they are divisible by 400. The 28-day months are named as follows: Helio, Mercury, Venus, Terra, Luna, Ares, Jove, Kronos, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Galaxy, and Cosmos. For example, America’s Fourth of July would be on Jove 15th. Christmas Day would be Cosmos 22nd. World Day would be the day just before Helio 1st, which is the day after Cosmos 28th. The first day of a year would be Monday, Helios the 1st. If one were born on a Thursday, all succeeding birthdays would always be on a Thursday. Such a calendar might appeal to many inasmuch as no month would be named after a Roman god, December which linguistically looks as if it is the tenth month would no longer be used, and astronomers would be expected to welcome the new terminology. Not addressed are the weekday names–Tiu, for example, is related to a Teutonic war god; Woden, or Odin, was the supreme Norse god; Thor was a Norse god of thunder; Friday is named after Frigga, a Norse goddess associated with sex; Saturn was a Roman god of agriculture. On Mars, where mankind may one day settle, a year will have a length of 668 days, 23 hours, 52 minutes, and 32 seconds in Earth time, or 668.61561 sols (days). William H. Becker (Mensa Bulletin, May 1995) has extrapolated that a seven-sol week divided into 668.61561 gives a year of 95 7-day weeks, with 3.6151 sols short of a full Mars year, a shortage which could become a Mars Leap Year for any year ending in 66 or any year ending in 32 in an even-numbered century. This would keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. The Earth and Mars calendars could only be compared by multiplying the Earth year by .5316514. Ergo the Earth year 2001 would see the start of Mars year 1065 at its northern hemisphere winter solstice, if such a point were established as Mars New Year’s Day. The Mars calendar might be 95 five-week months long and have 19 months. What to call the months and days on Mars? Humanists like Arthur C. Clarke would likely come up with Ganymede or other such names which have no connection with Judeo-Christianity.

(For other calendar ideas, see entries for Gilbert Romme [Republican], Auguste Comte [Positivist], and Stanley Stokes [Rational]; also see entry for Time.)

{CE; David Ewing Duncan, The Calendar}