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It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But

It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
Personally I'd go with 13 months of 4 weeks each. The only issue I see would be if you were born on a Monday your birthday would always be on a Monday.
- bawolff 2y ago
  And leap years get more complicated.
  - ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
    It's just another day isn't it?
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      Sure, but what weekday would it have? Would we have a repeated Sunday there?
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        We’ll call it KeplerBoy day in your honor, a new unique day.
        KeplerBoy 2y ago
        I'd like Keplerday. Seems appropriate.
    - bawolff 2y ago
      Well if you want to keep the whole number of weeks thing, you are then doing a leap week every 7 years except for multiples of 28, or something like that. Or if you want to keep each week same number of days maybe a leap month. Of course none of this is unheard of. The jewish calendar adds a leap month every 19 years to keep in sync with both the moon and the sun. Or if you want to go in the other direction you could just have one day not part of any week (cotsworth calendar)
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  Do you have an extra bonus day at the end that doesn’t belong to any week?
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    Make that the transition day.
dylan604 2y ago
When you base the first of anything based on the phases of the moon, you'll more often not be aligned with the 1st of any month. Basing a calendar on the phases of the moon doesn't line up with the full orbit around the sun, so something has to change somewhere. ~365.25 / ~29.53 doesn't work out to a whole number, so whatchagunnado? Leap seconds and leap years! Perfect!
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  I'm confused. The topic is the Julian and Gregorian calendars and things very close to them, right? Nothing in those calendars is based on the phase of the moon. Months are obviously inspired by the moon, but there's no attempt in this system to make them go anywhere near lining up. And that inspiration wouldn't block any attempt to align week starts with month starts.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  > ~365.25 ~365.2425 includes the leap year, century, and 4 century gregorian adjustments, and it's not a difficult number to remember actually. "it's not quite .25? how much is it shy? .2425"
- wazoox 2y ago
  Yes, and that's why the month of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar shifts by about two weeks every year, because it's a lunar calendar. But this doesn't apply here.
chrismcb 2y ago
Arbitrary?I guess. I always assumed it had to do with the seasons. With the new year starting roughly after the winter solstice. Why the solstices aren't lined up with the month is beyond me. Buy it makes more sense to me that the new year basically starts with the days getting longer. As opposed to, I guess, when the plants start turning green again.
adrian_b 2y ago
The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern hemisphere. Those who are guilty for the fact that the solstices and the equinoxes do not fall on beginnings of months are Julius Caesar and his astronomer consultant, Sosigenes. The Roman calendar had been very bad and it had drifted extremely from the astronomical year. The calendar reform of Caesar has corrected the length of the year, but it has failed to align the solstices and the equinoxes with the beginnings of months. Instead of that, the Winter solstice fell on the 25th of December and the Spring equinox fell on the 25th of March. So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries. Additional confusion has been created by the Gregorian calendar, which has not restored the calendar from the beginning of the Christian era, but it has restored the calendar of the 4th century, when the rules for computing the date of the Easter have been established. The calendar of the 4th century had been shifted by 3 days since the calendar reform of Caesar, resulting in the current dates for the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox around the 22th of December and the 22th of March. So now not only the solstices and equinoxes do not fall on the beginnings of months, but they no longer fall on the traditional days of the 25th of their months.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. It makes sense to use those as a basis. And it makes sense to line up the months with those points. But if the months don't line up, I think aligning with the nearest month is much better than not doing so. At least on the kind of solar calendar we use.
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    The solar calendar we use dictates the length of the year, but the months and days on that year can simply be shifted arbitrarily.
roenxi 2y ago
Yes and no. As the article reminds us many of the months have numbers in the name. It is arbitrary to have December as the 10th month, but having the thing with 10 in the name as the tenth thing is somewhat more satisfying than having it as the 12th.
- eru 2y ago
  Yes, February should be the earliest month in the year and numbered as month 0. Then October could have number 8, and so on, and January could be the last month and the two faced god would be good for looking forward and back, as people are wont to do at the end of the year.
bawolff 2y ago
> But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right? Well january is literally named after janus, the deity of beginnings and endings.
- eru 2y ago
  Yes, so January should be the last month of the year so people can look forward and back, and February could be month 0. Then everything would line up with October being month 8.
petesergeant 2y ago
> It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month Let’s not even start on pre-decimal coinage or pre-metric units

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago

Personally I'd go with 13 months of 4 weeks each. The only issue I see would be if you were born on a Monday your birthday would always be on a Monday.

bawolff 2y ago
And leap years get more complicated.
- ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
  It's just another day isn't it?
  - KeplerBoy 2y ago
    Sure, but what weekday would it have? Would we have a repeated Sunday there?
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      We’ll call it KeplerBoy day in your honor, a new unique day.
      - KeplerBoy 2y ago
        I'd like Keplerday. Seems appropriate.
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Well if you want to keep the whole number of weeks thing, you are then doing a leap week every 7 years except for multiples of 28, or something like that. Or if you want to keep each week same number of days maybe a leap month. Of course none of this is unheard of. The jewish calendar adds a leap month every 19 years to keep in sync with both the moon and the sun. Or if you want to go in the other direction you could just have one day not part of any week (cotsworth calendar)
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Do you have an extra bonus day at the end that doesn’t belong to any week?
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Make that the transition day.

dylan604 2y ago

When you base the first of anything based on the phases of the moon, you'll more often not be aligned with the 1st of any month. Basing a calendar on the phases of the moon doesn't line up with the full orbit around the sun, so something has to change somewhere. ~365.25 / ~29.53 doesn't work out to a whole number, so whatchagunnado? Leap seconds and leap years! Perfect!

Dylan16807 2y ago
I'm confused. The topic is the Julian and Gregorian calendars and things very close to them, right? Nothing in those calendars is based on the phase of the moon. Months are obviously inspired by the moon, but there's no attempt in this system to make them go anywhere near lining up. And that inspiration wouldn't block any attempt to align week starts with month starts.
fsckboy 2y ago
> ~365.25 ~365.2425 includes the leap year, century, and 4 century gregorian adjustments, and it's not a difficult number to remember actually. "it's not quite .25? how much is it shy? .2425"
wazoox 2y ago
Yes, and that's why the month of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar shifts by about two weeks every year, because it's a lunar calendar. But this doesn't apply here.

chrismcb 2y ago

Arbitrary?I guess. I always assumed it had to do with the seasons. With the new year starting roughly after the winter solstice. Why the solstices aren't lined up with the month is beyond me. Buy it makes more sense to me that the new year basically starts with the days getting longer. As opposed to, I guess, when the plants start turning green again.

adrian_b 2y ago

The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern hemisphere. Those who are guilty for the fact that the solstices and the equinoxes do not fall on beginnings of months are Julius Caesar and his astronomer consultant, Sosigenes. The Roman calendar had been very bad and it had drifted extremely from the astronomical year. The calendar reform of Caesar has corrected the length of the year, but it has failed to align the solstices and the equinoxes with the beginnings of months. Instead of that, the Winter solstice fell on the 25th of December and the Spring equinox fell on the 25th of March. So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries. Additional confusion has been created by the Gregorian calendar, which has not restored the calendar from the beginning of the Christian era, but it has restored the calendar of the 4th century, when the rules for computing the date of the Easter have been established. The calendar of the 4th century had been shifted by 3 days since the calendar reform of Caesar, resulting in the current dates for the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox around the 22th of December and the 22th of March. So now not only the solstices and equinoxes do not fall on the beginnings of months, but they no longer fall on the traditional days of the 25th of their months.

Dylan16807 2y ago
> The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. It makes sense to use those as a basis. And it makes sense to line up the months with those points. But if the months don't line up, I think aligning with the nearest month is much better than not doing so. At least on the kind of solar calendar we use.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  The solar calendar we use dictates the length of the year, but the months and days on that year can simply be shifted arbitrarily.

roenxi 2y ago

Yes and no. As the article reminds us many of the months have numbers in the name. It is arbitrary to have December as the 10th month, but having the thing with 10 in the name as the tenth thing is somewhat more satisfying than having it as the 12th.

eru 2y ago
Yes, February should be the earliest month in the year and numbered as month 0. Then October could have number 8, and so on, and January could be the last month and the two faced god would be good for looking forward and back, as people are wont to do at the end of the year.

bawolff 2y ago

> But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right? Well january is literally named after janus, the deity of beginnings and endings.

eru 2y ago
Yes, so January should be the last month of the year so people can look forward and back, and February could be month 0. Then everything would line up with October being month 8.

petesergeant 2y ago

> It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month Let’s not even start on pre-decimal coinage or pre-metric units