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Calendars & Dating Systems (General; Miscellaneous)

A

Anonymous

Guest
2012-DEC-21:

The Mayan calendar expressed a date in the form: 6.19.18.1.5 This means:

6 Baktun, an interval of 144,000 days,
19 Katun (generations) of 7200 days,
18 Tun (years) of 360 days,
1 Uinal (month) of 20 days,
5 Kin (days)
According to the (Widely accepted) Thompson correlation, the first day of the mayan calendar (0.0.0.0.0) corresponds to 11th AUG, 3114 BCE In the Gregorian calendar. This was when they believed that Venus was born. Mayans also had a "Great Cycle of the Long Count" of 13 Baktuns or 5,125.36 years. Many interpreters believe that the Mayans expected that the universe would last exactly that length of time. That is, they anticipated the end of the world at the Winter Solstice. 2012-DEC-21 or 13.0.0.0.0 in their notation, where the present 'Sun' will end, (According to Mayan mythology, were are living in the 'fifth Sun' or era of Creation. all Previous suns have ended Cataclysmically, as will this one.)
 
Link - Novel calendar system creates regular dates

looks like this one isn't going ahead this year though:

A US physicist is lobbying for people to adopt his novel calendar in which every date falls on the same day of the week each year.

The current calendar, which runs for 365 days, was instituted by Pope Gregory in 1582 to bring the length of the year in line with the seasons. But because the Earth actually orbits the Sun every 365.24 days, a 366-day "leap year" must be added every four years to account for the extra fraction of a day. In this Gregorian system, a given date (such as New Year's Day) falls on different days of the week in different years because 365 is not evenly divisible by seven.

That means new calendars must be printed every year, and the dates for recurring events constantly recalculated. "For many years, I've had to make up a new schedule to tell my class when homework is due," says Dick Henry, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US. "Here I am putting all this totally unnecessary work in and I decided I better do something about it."

So Henry designed a calendar that uses 364 days, which breaks down evenly into 52 weeks. In his so called "Calendar-and-Time" (C&T) plan, each month contains 30 or 31 days. He decided on each month's length by forbidding the new calendar to differ from the old one by more than five days and by setting Christmas Day, 25 December, to always fall on a Sunday.
Extra week

His constraints meant eight months would have different lengths than they do now. March, June, September, and December would each contain 31 days, while the other months would each get 30. To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. He named the addition "Newton Week" in honour of his favourite physicist, Isaac Newton.

"If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.

Despite this incentive, Henry says he has encountered resistance to his plan - mainly because people would be "stuck" with a birthday that always falls on a Wednesday, for example. Henry, who is among that group, is not moved by the argument. "You have my permission to celebrate your birthday the preceding or following Saturday," he says.

And what of the people born on dates that no longer exists in the new calendar, such as 31 January, or during Newton Week? Henry suggests they celebrate on either 30 January or "consider themselves to be born on the fourth of July" (which falls on a Wednesday).
Sacrosanct seven

"I think such a calendar would be extremely useful," says Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian of science at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. He says previous calendar reform efforts have "crashed" because they disturbed the seven-day week considered sacrosanct by religious groups. Efforts have involved adding an extra, unnamed day at the end of the year or, as happened after the French Revolution, implementing 10-day weeks.

"This is the first proposal I'm aware of that gets into a standard calendar but doesn't have the pattern of seven upset," Gingerich told New Scientist. He notes the world was slow to adopt the Gregorian calendar. England and its colonies did not switch to the system until 1752, nearly 200 years after Rome began using it.

Henry hopes to have rallied enough support for his plan to start it on 1 January 2006, when New Year's Day in both the old and new calendars falls on a Sunday. And he is not stopping with dates - Henry says the entire world should operate on Greenwich Mean Time. People in the eastern US, for example, would have to get used to eating their midday meals when the clocks read 1700. "People are adaptable if benefits are there," says Henry.
 
Two comments:

Firstly, a calendar of 13x 28 day months would be neater. We could then have an extra day, outside of any month, for Hogmany. (Like some calendar systems used to.) Leap years would have two Hogmany days for extra celebration.

Secondly: Have every date fall on the same day each year? How dull!
 
A simpler calender??

Novel calendar system creates regular dates

11:30 03 January 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee


A US physicist is lobbying for people to adopt his novel calendar in which every date falls on the same day of the week each year.

The current calendar, which runs for 365 days, was instituted by Pope Gregory in 1582 to bring the length of the year in line with the seasons. But because the Earth actually orbits the Sun every 365.24 days, a 366-day "leap year" must be added every four years to account for the extra fraction of a day. In this Gregorian system, a given date (such as New Year's Day) falls on different days of the week in different years because 365 is not evenly divisible by seven.

That means new calendars must be printed every year, and the dates for recurring events constantly recalculated. "For many years, I've had to make up a new schedule to tell my class when homework is due," says Dick Henry, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US. "Here I am putting all this totally unnecessary work in and I decided I better do something about it."

So Henry designed a calendar that uses 364 days, which breaks down evenly into 52 weeks. In his so called "Calendar-and-Time" (C&T) plan, each month contains 30 or 31 days. He decided on each month's length by forbidding the new calendar to differ from the old one by more than five days and by setting Christmas Day, 25 December, to always fall on a Sunday.

Extra week
His constraints meant eight months would have different lengths than they do now. March, June, September, and December would each contain 31 days, while the other months would each get 30. To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. He named the addition "Newton Week" in honour of his favourite physicist, Isaac Newton.

"If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.

Despite this incentive, Henry says he has encountered resistance to his plan - mainly because people would be "stuck" with a birthday that always falls on a Wednesday, for example. Henry, who is among that group, is not moved by the argument. "You have my permission to celebrate your birthday the preceding or following Saturday," he says.

And what of the people born on dates that no longer exists in the new calendar, such as 31 January, or during Newton Week? Henry suggests they celebrate on either 30 January or "consider themselves to be born on the fourth of July" (which falls on a Wednesday).

Sacrosanct seven
"I think such a calendar would be extremely useful," says Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian of science at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. He says previous calendar reform efforts have "crashed" because they disturbed the seven-day week considered sacrosanct by religious groups. Efforts have involved adding an extra, unnamed day at the end of the year or, as happened after the French Revolution, implementing 10-day weeks.

"This is the first proposal I'm aware of that gets into a standard calendar but doesn't have the pattern of seven upset," Gingerich told New Scientist. He notes the world was slow to adopt the Gregorian calendar. England and its colonies did not switch to the system until 1752, nearly 200 years after Rome began using it.

Henry hopes to have rallied enough support for his plan to start it on 1 January 2006, when New Year's Day in both the old and new calendars falls on a Sunday. And he is not stopping with dates - Henry says the entire world should operate on Greenwich Mean Time. People in the eastern US, for example, would have to get used to eating their midday meals when the clocks read 1700. "People are adaptable if benefits are there," says Henry.

Source

Hmm... any system where you have to invent a whole new week to make it work, and even then would still mean people lose their birthdays would find it hard to qualify as 'simple'
 
Re: A simpler calender??

Swan said:
"If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.


entire world should operate on Greenwich Mean Time. People in the eastern US, for example, would have to get used to eating their midday meals when the clocks read 1700. "People are adaptable if benefits are there," says Henry.

Hmm... any system where you have to invent a whole new week to make it work, and even then would still mean people lose their birthdays would find it hard to qualify as 'simple'


This man obviously has too much spare time on his hands, and you're right Swan- What's so bloody simple about it?
:roll:
Mmm...a week of physics. What fun filled days they would be...
 
Not sure if it's an improvement on what we have really...

And I'd much rather Christmas Day fall on a Saturday, Boxing Day on a Sunday... so we get two days of Bank Holiday on the Monday and Tuesday.
 
I know that Jews and Arabs both have different calendars to our (Christian based) calendar, but this one was new to me:

Millennium fever grips Ethiopia at last
September 12, 2007

DANIEL HAILU promised to marry his girlfriend after the millennium. And now she eagerly awaits the arrival of her wedding ring. "She is so relieved that 1999 is nearly over," said Mr Hailu, a 29-year-old TV salesman.

Mr Hailu is not living in a time warp, rather in Ethiopia where, thanks to a quirk of history, the country's calendar lags more than seven years behind the Western version. Only last night, after years of anticipation and months of frenzied preparation, was the year 2000 due finally be ushered in.

A huge celebration was planned. In the capital, Addis Ababa, searchlights carved swords of silver in the sky. A brand-new $12 million convention hall was built near the airport by a billionaire construction magnate.

There, in front of 20,000 people, US hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas were due to headline a concert to be broadcast on giant screens across the country, kicking off a year of celebrations. Beyonce, the US pop diva, is scheduled to perform in October.

Organisers hoped that the festivities will help project a new image of Ethiopia abroad, replacing the stereotypical view of a country plagued by hunger, conflict and poverty. For Ethiopians, it is an opportunity to forget their worries and look to a better future, according to Seyoum Bereded, the head of the millennium organising committee.

"This is like a birthday," said Mr Bereded, who until last year worked in IT in London. "And on your birthday you don't talk about the appendix operation you had a few months ago."

Although many Ethiopians are equally comfortable using the Western dateline, there is little doubting their pride in maintaining their own calendar. Alongside Ethiopia's status as the cradle of humankind and its record as the only African country successfully to resist colonisation, the faith-based calendar reinforces the feeling that, while they are African, they are also unique.

Organisers stress that the costs of staging the event are being borne by Sheik Mohammed al-Amoudi, the Ethiopian-born tycoon and one of the 100 richest men in the world. The Sheraton Hotel he owns was responsible for the huge fireworks display at midnight.

http://tinyurl.com/3yhz5z

I'd like to know more about this 'quirk of history'...

....But it's a quirk of our modern system that this story actually carries tomorrow's date
as I post it!
:shock: 8)
 
Ethiopian calendar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ethiopian calendar (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ዘመን አቆጣጠር ye'Ītyōṗṗyā zemen āḳoṭaṭer), also called the Ge'ez calendar, is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and is also the liturgical year of Christians in Eritrea belonging to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, Eastern Catholic Church of Eritrea and Lutheran (Evangelical Church of Eritrea), where it is commonly known as the Ge'ez calendar. It is based on the older Alexandrian or Coptic calendar, which is based on the even older Egyptian calendar, but like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years without exception, and begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar.

Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopian/Ge'ez calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus five or six epagomenal days (usually called a thirteenth month). Furthermore, its months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but they have different names, that are in Ge'ez. The sixth epagomenal day is added every four years without exception on August 29 in the Julian calendar, six months before the Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1901 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually September 11 (Gregorian), but falls on September 12 (Gregorian), in years before the Gregorian leap year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_calendar

So now you know!

ps: BEEB STORY HERE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6990298.stm
 
rynner said:
Posted: Tue 11-09-2007

....

Mr Hailu is not living in a time warp, rather in Ethiopia where, thanks to a quirk of history, the country's calendar lags more than seven years behind the Western version. Only last night, after years of anticipation and months of frenzied preparation, was the year 2000 due finally be ushered in.
So this little shift hardly counts:

Gwaun Valley children mark old New Year

Children in the Pembrokeshire hills will spend Friday, 13 January walking the 18 miles (29km) around their valley singing to their neighbours to welcome in the New Year.
They are not two weeks late, but rather celebrating Hen Galan, or old New Year, based on the ancient Julian calendar followed until it was superseded in parts of Britain by the Gregorian calendar in the 18th Century.

The Gregorian calendar cut 11 days from September 1752 out of existence in an attempt to correct a growing discrepancy between dates of festivals and the the actual seasons.

However, the people of the Gwaun Valley near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire ignored this decree and carried on regardless.
In keeping with tradition, children from the valley walk from house to house and sing traditional songs in Welsh which have not altered for centuries.
In return, householders shower them with sweets and money - or "calennig", literally "New Year gift or celebration".

The local school, Ysgol Llanychllwydog in Pontfaen, will be open but the teachers are not expecting to see much of their 25 pupils that day.
Acting headteacher Glesni James told BBC Wales: "The children are all out going around the valley singing. There may be a handful of children here.
"They all call here and sing for us."

Teacher Ruth Morgan knows all too well how the day will unfold for her pupils.
As a child of the valley herself, the 29-year-old spent every year until her early teens out with her family and friends serenading the local residents.
She described a typical Hen Galan day, saying: "You'd get up, have breakfast and go out to sing in the local houses, wishing them a happy New Year.
"They gave us sweets and money as 'calennig'.
"Nobody organises anything - parents just take their children around and this is passed on from one generation to another.
"I remember going round on a horse one year. It wasn't a good idea because there was nowhere to tether it at most places."

For the adults, there are a few local establishments that they can visit to welcome in the New Year in grown-up fashion.
"Everybody gets together for a bit of a singsong. I think years ago they used to do it in a farmhouse," she said.
"There are a few songs that everybody uses. They are in Welsh, just passed on from generation to generation."

------------------------------------------------------

From Julian to Gregorian

The Julian calendar is named after the Roman consul and dictator Julius Caesar and was introduced in 45BC.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 by papal decree from Pope Gregory XIII to bring dates of festivals in line with the actual seasons. They had fallen behind because a miscalculation in the length of a year in the Julian calendar meant about an extra three days were being gained every four centuries.

Although adopted by many European countries, England and Wales refused to go along with it, probably because of continuing clashes with Roman Catholicism after the English Reformation.
By the mid 18th Century, they caved in and adopted the calendar. Scotland had adopted it in 1600.

The news clearly did not go down well in the Gwaun Valley which carried on ringing in the Julian New Year regardless.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-16487089

Something similar has happened in other parts of Britain. In Cornwall the famous Helston Furry is supposed to be a celebration of May Day - but it's actually performed on the 8th May!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_Dance
 
Thrifty people will have invested in Herbert Atherton's Perpetual Calendar.

I have owned this double-sided calendar for many years, having rescued it from my grandparents' papers. It is very simple in concept: fourteen calendars are given in small print. One for each normal year starting on every day of the week, and one for each leap year. They are given key letters A through to N and a table is given for every year from 1800 to 2000.

I see that Herbert Atherton (Wimbledon Park) applied for a patent in 1910, which looks about right for the typeface on my yellowing copy.

I did use it regularly, in pre-computer days, if I wanted to check what day of the week a particular date was. I am a trifle disgusted that it gave up in 2000, though I had not thought to look at it in over a decade.

I suppose it has gone the way of logarithms and it is not worth compiling a supplementary table of 21st Century key letters. :(
 
rynner2 said:
Gwaun Valley children mark old New Year

Children in the Pembrokeshire hills will spend Friday, 13 January walking the 18 miles (29km) around their valley singing to their neighbours to welcome in the New Year.
They are not two weeks late, but rather celebrating Hen Galan, or old New Year, based on the ancient Julian calendar followed until it was superseded in parts of Britain by the Gregorian calendar in the 18th Century.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_Dance


I saw an item on the news about the new year celebrations.
I wonder if the celebrate Christmas 11 days later too?
 
Well yes but they are not one valley celebrating out of date with the rest of the country are they?
 
index.php

Is that first one from 100BC, 100AD or should it be 'the 1st century'?
 
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What is this use of 'CE' though?
Sounds like some kind of pandering to an offended minority who have boo-hooed that "the normally accepted system of numbering years that most of the western world has used for centuries upsets me...".
Which just serves to confuse and appears to have led to a 'mix and match' approach in which no standard numbering is used consistently any more.
Just saying.
Back to the funny.
 
What is this use of 'CE' though?
Sounds like some kind of pandering to an offended minority who have boo-hooed that "the normally accepted system of numbering years that most of the western world has used for centuries upsets me...".
Which just serves to confuse and appears to have led to a 'mix and match' approach in which no standard numbering is used consistently any more.
Just saying.
Back to the funny.
Yes, so as not to offend non-religious people, I think. And a lightbulb will always be 40/60/100 watt to me.
 
If we want everyone to use the same dating system where appropriate, we need to compromise on what we call it.
Good luck with that one.
I'm not even going to start listing all the things that 'we' can't all agree on besides anyway.
 
What is this use of 'CE' though?
Sounds like some kind of pandering to an offended minority who have boo-hooed that "the normally accepted system of numbering years that most of the western world has used for centuries upsets me...".
Which just serves to confuse and appears to have led to a 'mix and match' approach in which no standard numbering is used consistently any more.
Just saying.
Back to the funny.
The first recorded use of CE instead of AD was in 1615, and there are examples from 1635 and 1708. It is not an "offended millennial" thing.
 
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In Judaism we have four New Years within a sometimes 12 or sometimes 13 month lunar cycle.

Rosh Hashonah -

1st day of the month of Tishrei.
It is when we count the years from ie. 5782, 5783.
It is when we count Sabbatical and Jubilee years from.
It marks the anniversary of when G-D conceptualised the world.

Tu B'Shevat -

15th day of the month of Shevat.
A new year for trees.

1st day of the month of Nisan -

The first day of the first month.
The new year of the reigns of Jewish kings.

1st day of the month of Elul (last month before Rosh Hashonah)
The new year for the tithing of cattle.

Whilst the religious calendar is lunar, there is a religious date that is based on the solar year, for when a certain blessing is inserted in a certain prayer, about the weather.
 
The first recorded use of CE instead of AD was in 1615, and there are examples from 1635 and 1708. It is not an "offended millennial" thing.
re: places and when this has come up as an issue:
in the 90s in the US, the local debate was "it's because not everyone is Christian; also, you can't really study Christianity's place in history by addressing history from a religiously driven perspective" vs. "there is a conspiracy to harm Christianity by keeping it out of the history books, otherwise they'd just leave things they way they've always been".
The latter of which never quite charted for me, especially since the idea of some anti-Christianity movement is a fiction, and the actually stated reason for not reckoning time as "the year of our Lord" made plenty of sense for changing it. It's not like forcing academia to stick to a particular thing for religious reasons is going to make a positive difference, and it's not like religions aren't covered in social studies.
Anyway, considering that "always been that way" is a real variable statement and that a lot of history books have been made significantly better over time, I don't mind a technical-term change here and there.
 
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