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Having months that actually line up with the lunar cycle would be very handy.
by causi 3y ago
Having months that actually line up with the lunar cycle would be very handy.
- elevaet 3y agoThe one extra day a year would mean the full moon would fall back by 1 day every year relative to the months. Which still would still be pretty handy.
- acjohnson55 3y agoBut they wouldn't, because the lunar cycle isn't 28 days. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_month https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_month
- aardvark179 3y agoThe lunar cycle is not 28 days, or even a whole number of days.
- yieldcrv 3y agoif our orbit around the sun was a perfect circle instead of elliptical we could ignore the orbit completely, or at least I would be willing to, and focus on the moon or just some interval of rotations - day/night cycles
- kalnins 3y agoWinter/Summer cycle is more about the angle of Earths rotational axis and not the distance from the sun.
- osigurdson 3y agoLining up with the solar cycle / journey is more useful though (away from the equator at least). I suspect that is why people landed on a ~365 day calendar.
- edflsafoiewq 3y agoHandy for what?
- em500 3y agoMost civilizations started with a lunar calendar (still used in Chinese and Islamic calendars), because it was much easier to observe the lunar cycle than the solar cycle. The solar calendar was the more useful one for getting good harvests, but technically much more challenging (requiring several tweaks over may centuries get the calibration right).