Greetings. Long time no chat. But tonight I have an interesting topic to discuss, namely, calendars. Calendars are a fascinating subject. Ever since the dawn of human history, man has sought to keep track of time. Starting with the seconds, minutes, and hours of a day, to days, weeks, months, years, and centuries, man has tried to perfect his knowledge of just WHERE we were on the schedule of religious observances and agricultual cycles, as well as our own body's bio-rhythms (particularly in the case of the female of the species).
The fact that we can calculate time according to either a lunar cycle or a solar cycle, or even a luni-solar cycle (as in the case of the Jews and several other cultures), enables us to be very creative with the making of time measurement devices. It is well known that the Gregorian Calendar used by most Christians and by the majority of the world for secular purposes is a solar calendar. The Islamic Calendar is lunar.
Of course, the benefit of the solar calendars is that they can be used for agricultural purposes. The weakness is the issue of the Earth taking 365.242227 days to circle the Sun. The current system in use says that every four years is a leap year except century years unless that year is evenly divisible by 4. So 1600 WAS a leap year, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were NOT, but 2000 WAS.
Perhaps the most logical calendar ever devised was the French Revolutionary Calendar, also called the French Republican Calendar. Designed to eliminate all religious and royalist influence, it was also part of the overall metrication of France, along with Decimal Time and Decimal Weights and Measures. There were still twelve months in the year, but each month was 30 days long, and divided into 3 weeks of ten days each, known aas decades. Each month was given a rather poetic name describing the weather or common activity during that month (for example, Vendemiaire, meaning Grape Harvest, or Nivose, meaning Snowy). The first three months rhymed with each other. The second batch of three did as well, and so-on through the year.
The days of the decade were simply named primidi, duodi, tridi, quartidi, quintidi, sextidi, septidi, octidi, nonidi, and decadi. But EVERY day of the year was given the name of a plant, an animal, or an agricultural tool. This was a direct insult to the custom of the Church marking time by giving each day over to a Saint.
Year I (years were marked in Roman numerals) was adjudged to have started at Midnight on 22 September 1793, 1 Vendemiaire I. This was retroactive, as the calendar was not used until 24 November 1793. Of course, it was obvious that this was a year of 360 days, so five more were added at the end of each year, to honour such thing as as Virtue, Labour, Genius, Honour, and Opinion. A leap year had another day dedicated to the Revolution itself.
Beacause the New Year began when the Autumnal Equinox was observed from Paris, this meant that things were a bit inexact., particularly regarding leap years. Ultimately the decision was made to start mathematically regularising things as of 1820, but this never happened, as the calendar was no longer in use.
There were various reasons for the demise of the calendar. One was that, although the people actually got MORE time off (a full day on a decadi, and half a day on a quintidi) than they had under the old calendar (a full day on a Sunday), they still rather resented the ten day cycle, no matter how logical it may have been. It interfered not only with Church on Sunday, but other Christian festivals as well. Another problem was simply having to observe the beginning of the Autumnal Equinox. Furthermore, while the names of the months quite accurately described things in Northern France, they certainly would have been a bit odd in French Guiana or parts of Africa.
Granted, the Equinox could have been resolved by mathematics, and has been, by those with interest in the subject. The same applies to the leap year, wherein every fourth year is a leap year unless it can be evenly divided by 128.
On an interesting side note, the French Calendar very closely reproduced the ancient Egyptian Calendar, except that their New Year began at the start of Summer.
I shall freely admit that I use the French Calendar in my personal scheduling and accounting, and in the memo line of my cheques, I always write the FRC date, and keep it in my cheque book along with the Gregorian date.
So, the question I have for all of you is the following:
Do you think we should change the calendar we currently use, and if so, why, and to which one?I shall be interested to read your responses.