Physicist invents new calendar

[Shake]

Sorry to any of you born on Jan. 31st, the one date that gets cut from the new calendar (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1232757.html?menu=), but for the rest of us, our birthdays are always on the same day of the week. Plus, there's a Newton Week:To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry added an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years.

I almost put this in humor, but since it is somewhat science related, I thought I'd let it at least start here. The mods will do with it as they see fit.

[Tau]

A US physicist has come up with a new calendar in which every date falls on the same day of the week each year.

Tolkien did that decades ago. Behold the Shire Calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_Calendar).

[hagiograph]

Clearly this physicist doesn't work in INDUSTRY or he'd know NOT to put a prime holiday on a WEEKEND DAY. You always put Christmas on Friday so that you can reasonably expect the prior Thursday off (or at least greatly shortened. With Christmas on Sunday that means Friday is Dec 23, which no one will give you off.

Sheesh.

Apparently I could be a better physicist. Or maybe we Chemists just see the world a little more clearly.

[Aravnah Ornan]

OMFH! That was my professor for E&M in undergrad.

Anyway, the new calendar reminds me somewhat of the French revolutionary calendar.

[Igor Trip]

To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry added an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years.
This is a bad idea as it means that some years are longer than others.

A much simpler idea is to have New year’s day as an extra day between Sunday 31st December and Monday the 1st January.
This would give us a 52 week and one day year. Leap year would also add an extra day before New year.

This would keep the days of the week on the same days of the months and the years the same length (except leap year).

It might also be an idea to put New year back ten days so that it actually is the longest night (presently December 21st).

[Mageth]

Sorry to any of you born on Jan. 31st, the one date that gets cut...

From the article:

In his so called Calendar-and-Time plan, March, June, September, and December each contain 31 days, while the other months all get 30.

May, July, August, and October all lose a 31st day as well!

And my birthday's August 31st. :o

[chapka]

This is a bad idea as it means that some years are longer than others.

A much simpler idea is to have New year’s day as an extra day between Sunday 31st December and Monday the 1st January.
This would give us a 52 week and one day year. Leap year would also add an extra day before New year.

IIRC there was a calendar proposed a few years ago which did this; the extra day was called "Armstrong," after Neil Armstrong.

On the other hand, if we're talking calendar reform, I think the seven-day week has got to go. Get rid of Wednesday entirely, and you've got twelve months, each with five weeks of six days each. More weekends, shorter work weeks, and a five-day off-calendar festival each year.

Yes, it's implausible. But any calendar reform is implausible--why not at least make sure it gets you more weekends, too?

[BioBeing]

Yes, it's implausible. But any calendar reform is implausible--why not at least make sure it gets you more weekends, too?
Makes me think of the Y2K hysteria! Imagine what would happen to our computers if the whole system was changed like this! Or, maybe more correctly, imagine the hysteria that could be whipped up by suggesting that our computer systems couldn't handle the change...

[IanC]

A much simpler idea is to have New year’s day as an extra day between Sunday 31st December and Monday the 1st January.
This would give us a 52 week and one day year. Leap year would also add an extra day before New year.

This would keep the days of the week on the same days of the months and the years the same length (except leap year).

Add a day and you go to 366 days, 52 weeks is 364. He removes a day, and so ends up with precisely 52 weeks. This throws the whole thing slightly out of alignment, we cope with this at the moment with a leap year, with his we need a leap week (so days of the year are always on the same weekday) every 5-6 years.

Some years are longer than others anyway, and one week every 5-6 years is not very much.

Makes me think of the Y2K hysteria! Imagine what would happen to our computers if the whole system was changed like this! Or, maybe more correctly, imagine the hysteria that could be whipped up by suggesting that our computer systems couldn't handle the change...

Check his site, he covers the tiny change in code required to do this, the problem with Y2K was because the computers couldnt handle a year greater than 2000, this just needs a changing of the lengths of the months.

With removing a day, he also changes the months so all are either 30 or 31 days, so no more strange Feb.

Calendar changes have been proposed before, but this one doesnt change that much, and makes things simpler. He also proposes changes to the time, by taking out the hours adjustment, so everyone starts tuesday at the same time, removing date lines and the such, though it would be very annoying changing the day at 3pm.


Ian

[Shadowy Man]

OMFH! That was my professor for E&M in undergrad.


I also know Professor Henry. He's a bit of an ... uh.. eccentric, to put it mildly.

[Schneibster]

One item was missed in the "new year's day" calendar:

New Year's Day is not a day of the week, nor of any month. Neither is Leap Year Day, which on the years when it is required occurs after New Year's Day. The current rules for leap year continue: every fourth year except the century year, except that on century years divisible by 400, the leap year day occurs. Those who were paying attention will remember that there was a leap year day on 29 FEB 2000; normally there is no such leap year day on a century year. Very few alive remember that there was no such day in 1900.

The Earth's rotation is slowing, and in about 5000 years, it will be necessary to add another day to every year to compensate. At that point, we will probably have to abandon the Gregorian calendar and see what we want to do with a year of 366 days.

To top it all off, there have been 22 leap seconds since 1970, introduced to correct for irregularities in the Earth's rotation, every time so far being an extra second to account for a slowing of the rotation due to the tidal influence of the Moon and Sun. Because of the imperfect sphericity of the Earth, and because of perturbations of the Moon's orbit due to the other planets and of the Earth's orbit for the same reason, these irregularities are not perfectly predictable; thus, the leap seconds are added as needed. We are currently in the longest period that has not required a leap second since the institution of the practice; our last leap second was the extra second added between 23:59:59 31 DEC 1998 and 00:00:00 01 JAN 1999.

[Boro Nut]

Physicist invents new calendar.

Just what the world needs. A more efficient way to rinse lettuce.

Boro Nut

[jayh]

From the article:



May, July, August, and October all lose a 31st day as well!

And my birthday's August 31st. :o

Well suck it up you snivelling little crybabies. The loss of your precious birthdays is a small price to pay for the benefit of a better calendar. What's more important, the needs of a few whiners or the needs of the greater community???

[jayh]

One item was missed in the "new year's day" calendar:

The Earth's rotation is slowing, and in about 5000 years, it will be necessary to add another day to every year to compensate. At that point, we will probably have to abandon the Gregorian calendar and see what we want to do with a year of 366 days.
.

That sounds like an awful big slow down in only 5000 years.... is there a typo?

Even if the leap seconds continue unabated for the next 5000 years that's only a cumulative 1.5 hours, not nearly so much as a rate shift of 1 day per year!