4 ms·

For centuries in the western world, the Christian church, which considered this to be in its purview, kept trying different calendar schemes to try to make a se

by ds9 12y ago

For centuries in the western world, the Christian church, which considered this to be in its purview, kept trying different calendar schemes to try to make a set of months, preferably equal, fit neatly into the year. There have been may solutions tried or proposed, and the history of this has a certain puzzle-like fascination, but it's not clear to me why people cared so much about this. Astronomical periods are OK, apparently, for years and days, yet weeks and calendar months are arbitrarily imposed.

ghkbrew 12y ago
It's my understanding that the original basis for months was the lunar cycle, which is astronomical for common definitions of the word. Part of what makes picking a calendar difficult is that the ~29.5 day lunar month doesn't fit neatly into the ~365.25 day solar year. So we've ended up with succession of adjustments and fudge factors.
- Thrymr 12y ago
  There are a number of lunar calendars that have had long use. The Jewish, Islamic, and Chinese calendars, for example. They are a bit complicated for that reason. The Jewish calendar has the equivalent of "leap months", for example, while the Islamic calendar has a "year" that is ~10 days shorter than an astronomical year.
- zw123456 12y ago
  13 * 28 = 364, pretty close, you are left with 1.25 as a remainder, so every 4 years have a 5 day leap week.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> For centuries in the western world, the Christian church, which considered this to be in its purview, kept trying different calendar schemes to try to make a set of months, preferably equal, fit neatly into the year. That's not really a fair description of adopting a pre-existing system and issuing a single patch after more than a millenium. Sure, lots of things have been discussed, but not much has actually been tried.

4 ms·

For centuries in the western world, the Christian church, which considered this to be in its purview, kept trying different calendar schemes to try to make a se

by ds9 12y ago

ghkbrew 12y ago
It's my understanding that the original basis for months was the lunar cycle, which is astronomical for common definitions of the word. Part of what makes picking a calendar difficult is that the ~29.5 day lunar month doesn't fit neatly into the ~365.25 day solar year. So we've ended up with succession of adjustments and fudge factors.
- Thrymr 12y ago
  There are a number of lunar calendars that have had long use. The Jewish, Islamic, and Chinese calendars, for example. They are a bit complicated for that reason. The Jewish calendar has the equivalent of "leap months", for example, while the Islamic calendar has a "year" that is ~10 days shorter than an astronomical year.
- zw123456 12y ago
  13 * 28 = 364, pretty close, you are left with 1.25 as a remainder, so every 4 years have a 5 day leap week.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> For centuries in the western world, the Christian church, which considered this to be in its purview, kept trying different calendar schemes to try to make a set of months, preferably equal, fit neatly into the year. That's not really a fair description of adopting a pre-existing system and issuing a single patch after more than a millenium. Sure, lots of things have been discussed, but not much has actually been tried.