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.
...[Dick Henry, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US] 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.
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.
The physicist has also stated a belief that the whole world should run on Greenwich Mean Time.
It all sounds good to me. The only problem would be adjusting to the new system, but not much would really change, and it's be a hell of a lot easier getting people to understand that than it would getting people to understand faranheit/celcius and imperial/metric.
edit: On that Greenwich meantime thing though, wouldn't it be a bit confusing for people in other countries having midday at midnight and other such strangenesses?
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Could someone explain to me what's wrong with varying dates? Why should I care? And by the time we adjust to this new calendar, star dates will be thrust upon us.
dlbpharmd wrote:Could someone explain to me what's wrong with varying dates? Why should I care? And by the time we adjust to this new calendar, star dates will be thrust upon us.
From the article:
...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."
I have a better idea. I notice that every April, when Daylight Savings Time makes us put our clocks ahead one hour, that I am very tired in the mornings. But, in October, when we put it back one hour, I wake up refreshed. So, what we need to do is stop going forward an hour a year, and instead go back an hour every three months, which would be MUCH better than that extra day every four years we don't even get off from work.
Dandelion don't tell no lies
Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion
I'm afraid there's no denying
I'm just a dandelion
a fate I don't deserve.
* 
