New Calendar Proposal 796
belg4mit writes "An astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins is pushing for
the adoption of a new, static, calendar. The
press release is written better than his site
but a little short on details.
Interestingly he claims this should be easy to implement and points at the hoops coders must jump through for the Gregorian calendar." Nobody is taking my 10 hour day plan seriously either.
Site melting: (Score:4, Informative)
So view here [google.com] instead.
Another static calendar proposal (Score:4, Informative)
http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/rants/calend
Re:This won't please YHWH/Allah/insert deity here (Score:3, Informative)
Google Cache (Score:2, Informative)
Perpetual calendar (Score:2, Informative)
Re:decimal hours (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This won't please YHWH/Allah/insert deity here (Score:3, Informative)
no shortage of bad ideas (Score:5, Informative)
To give you some inside information, the guy behind this idea is kind of a crackpot -- he's a guy who has lots of weird thoughts, but hasn't exactly done much serious research in a while.
And that's why although this may make a good press release, any professional astronomer (or even amateur) knows why we have the calendar we do -- so that each year, the calendar days you are familiar with correspond to approximately where the stars lie in the sky, and the weather season, etc. Ie. every September, the vernal equinox coincides with the rising parallel, the length of the day, etc. etc. Leap days are the way to distribute the extra 1/4 of a day per year into a reasonable interval (once every 4 years).
This scheme of having one calendar with a leap "week" is just another way of shifting around the leap days, and is exactly what an astronomer would NOT want! And his rationale for not having to print different calendars is obviated by having to remember that leap "weeks" occur in years 2015, 2020, 2026, 2032, 2037, 2043, etc...
The current calendar gives some consistency and familiarity -- you can predict how long the day is, what stars are in the sky (within a day or so b/c leap days), and approximately if you're going to need a heavy jacket to go outside in the cold. Under this crackpot new calendar, you have to recompute all these things based on what year it is. Crackpot.
Newton Week? (Score:4, Informative)
For more information on calendar reform in general check Calendar Reform [ecu.edu]. I'm partial to the World Calendar [ecu.edu].
Actually ...deps ... (Score:5, Informative)
The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current 'Saturday.' Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days). However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.
In international standard ISO-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week.
So, actually, it depends rather on you (your beliefs) and how the people from your country choose to go ... BTW, here's a helpfull link to discover who choose what [timeanddate.com] :)
Re:so.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nutcase (Score:3, Informative)
"Aww....you've spotted the big defect in the new calendar. Isn't it terrible? And what about kiddies that are born in Newton week? When is their birthday, in non-Newton years? (Actually, I suggest that such folk should all consider themselves to be
(emphasis mine)
Re:10 hour day (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortinuely the Wikipedia articles have been edited such that they point back and forth to each other. This version from the history [wikipedia.org] is better.
Re:so.. (Score:4, Informative)
Wouldn't that be kilograms? ;)
The metric system has a unit of measure called the ton [google.com] as well, so no.
Re:This won't please YHWH/Allah/insert deity here (Score:3, Informative)
Fourth
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
French Revolutionary Calendar (Score:3, Informative)
The main shortcoming is of course the 10 day week, something that could be overcome by simple division into 5 day weeks.
The best feature is the 5-6 day party at the end. Screw Chrismahanakwanzaka, lets just have a 5 day party.
In case anyone doesn't get the joke... (Score:5, Informative)
Tolkien did it better with the Shire Calendar (Score:3, Informative)
Say what you want about Hobbits, but they knew the value of making drinking and eating a regular part of one's daily activities. And since they had so many kids, one might conclude that their after hours party activities included a few less bucolic things as well.
Re:Sounds like a nut because he is a nut (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hrm... (Score:1, Informative)