Pretty unpleasant to have an extra week once in a while, IMO. Seems this calendar would lead to confusing seasonal drift in more stable (pre-industrial) climate, but I guess there's no seasonal predictability going forward .
As a fun thought experiment, I once devised my own Equal Terrestrial Calendar, intended to be both predictable and actually secular.
- Weeks are 5 days long.
- Months are 6 weeks long (exactly).
- Thus, a month is 30 days, and as close as possible to an average lunar month.
- Every week/month/year begins on the same day of the week
- Work weeks are 3 days long.
- 3 intercalary holidays at the winter solstice, and 2 intercalary holidays at the summer solstice (make it 3 every leap year)
- 30 days/month * 12 months + 5.25 days (intercalary) = 365.25, but in a fairly even spread
Not possible for a calendar to be perfect, but I'd really enjoy living in this world.
What if instead we were to go with non-24-hour days? We could fix even more problems with such a system, like:
* Days starting at the same hour:minute all the time
* The current impossibility of a decimal clock. We're constantly told how using base-10 makes math so much easier, who wouldn't want a day being 10 hours long and a week 10 days long? If the answer is 168, you've screwed up somewhere
* The conceit that ancient deities like Apollo and Ra are so important that even after we've abandoned those religions, we must continue to allow our calendars revolve around their golden chariots. I say "no more!", we will spurn the astronomical bodies as well
* The relegation of agriculture to the primitive past, where it belongs. I only eat Hot Pockets anyway. The chicken milkers and tomato tree people can go live in yurts or something if they believe caveman calendars are important
* The ability to insert special 5-minute days into the calendar in emergencies, like when I have a new game on pre-order that is scheduled to come out in 60 days' time. We could easily reduce that to an effective 3 hours or so
3 intercalary holidays at the winter solstice, and 2 intercalary holidays at the summer solstice
Isn't the latter an example of the former - ie. a 'extra few days' somewhere?
I'm curious about the winter solstice vs summer solstice there - it sounds like if you're in the 'wrong' hemisphere, these are inverted, yeah? Or do you mean people in Australia would have '3 intercalary holidays' (I guess you mean 3 days) around our summer solstice?
I'd also note that the solstice can be on any of 3 days, typically.
Isn't the latter an example of the former - ie. a 'extra few days' somewhere?
Technically, yes, but that was a poor choice of words on my part. But "1 extra week every few years" is not the same as "3-day-holiday at the same time every year."
I'm curious about the winter solstice vs summer solstice there
I was referring to Northern solstices for brevity. The intercalary days would happen at the same time, so folks in the Southern Hemisphere would get the longer-on-average set at their summer solstice.
I'd also note that the solstice can be on any of 3 days, typically.
Yes, and a lunar month isn't a whole number of days, and a solar year isn't a whole number of days, either. We make do. Perhaps by setting aside a set of 3 days that the solstice could land on :)
Sure, the further problem there is the December solstice can occur[0] on any of 20, 21, 22, or 23rd of December, timezone of the observer notwithstanding.
Trying to be tricky with fantasy calendars will often catch you up.
You mentioned this was a secular calendar, but appear to have designated the two current / conventional Sabbaths (once again Islam gets the rough end of the stick).
Obviously religious people will oppose a shift from the 7 day week structure, as it will almost definitely break their brand of mysticism.
The design also locks in a 3-day work week, and 2 days where 'normal' people are seemingly not expected to work.
Right now we're tantalisingly close to reducing the conventional 5-day work week down to 4, so I'd be wary about trying to implement a calendaring system (or a social structure) that locked us into 3-day work weeks. It just burdens future-us yet another road block in several years when we realise working 60% of the time is as silly as the equally arbitrary 71%.
The nice thing about the four-day work week discussion is that it encourages people (though not everyone assumes or understands this feature) to think more fluidly in terms of days-of-the-week that you work, and days-of-the-week that you don't. Basically I think it'd be a massive shame to retard that aspect of the thought experiment all over again.
Anyway, cultural baggage is hard to shift when trying to come up with a Brand New Calendar, and it's enticing to try to reject arbitrary dates.
F.e. rather than try to follow some earth / sun configuration events, I'd probably just stick with the 1st of January as the western world's 1st day of the year - people's DOB and age will continue to track accurately that way. (Look at the mess for genealogists created by the ~1752 shuffle).
Other examples are assuming we need 12 months -- we very much don't -- and your proposed design effectively has 14 months anyway, just two of them are very short & variable length.
You've settled on solstice rather than equinox for these mini-breaks, which may indicate that one or both of the solstices is when your culture currently/commonly has a holiday?
Season commencements, of course, are not consistently observed around the world. In sane countries like Australia we consistently start summer on the 1st of December, so that summer spans the 3 hottest months, and winter on the 1st of June, etc. Our seasons kinda nearly center themselves around the season's equinox / solstice.
Similarly the 30 day month -- I can't work out any advantage to that, other than to mostly retain the 12-month calendar you're more familiar with.
I'd argue trying to have a calendar month length be near, but very much not the same as, the lunar cycle, is actually worse. With a half day length delta between the two, you're guaranteeing ~60 unique permutations of lunar : calendar, so not at all "predictable" for the casual citizen.
Comments
Pretty unpleasant to have an extra week once in a while, IMO. Seems this calendar would lead to confusing seasonal drift in more stable (pre-industrial) climate, but I guess there's no seasonal predictability going forward .
As a fun thought experiment, I once devised my own Equal Terrestrial Calendar, intended to be both predictable and actually secular.
- Weeks are 5 days long.
- Months are 6 weeks long (exactly).
- Thus, a month is 30 days, and as close as possible to an average lunar month.
- Every week/month/year begins on the same day of the week
- Work weeks are 3 days long.
- 3 intercalary holidays at the winter solstice, and 2 intercalary holidays at the summer solstice (make it 3 every leap year)
- 30 days/month * 12 months + 5.25 days (intercalary) = 365.25, but in a fairly even spread
Not possible for a calendar to be perfect, but I'd really enjoy living in this world.
What if instead we were to go with non-24-hour days? We could fix even more problems with such a system, like:
* Days starting at the same hour:minute all the time
* The current impossibility of a decimal clock. We're constantly told how using base-10 makes math so much easier, who wouldn't want a day being 10 hours long and a week 10 days long? If the answer is 168, you've screwed up somewhere
* The conceit that ancient deities like Apollo and Ra are so important that even after we've abandoned those religions, we must continue to allow our calendars revolve around their golden chariots. I say "no more!", we will spurn the astronomical bodies as well
* The relegation of agriculture to the primitive past, where it belongs. I only eat Hot Pockets anyway. The chicken milkers and tomato tree people can go live in yurts or something if they believe caveman calendars are important
* The ability to insert special 5-minute days into the calendar in emergencies, like when I have a new game on pre-order that is scheduled to come out in 60 days' time. We could easily reduce that to an effective 3 hours or so
Sounds fun. But the day is evenly divided already, so there's less pressure to change it.
Isn't the latter an example of the former - ie. a 'extra few days' somewhere?
I'm curious about the winter solstice vs summer solstice there - it sounds like if you're in the 'wrong' hemisphere, these are inverted, yeah? Or do you mean people in Australia would have '3 intercalary holidays' (I guess you mean 3 days) around our summer solstice?
I'd also note that the solstice can be on any of 3 days, typically.
Time is tricky.
Technically, yes, but that was a poor choice of words on my part. But "1 extra week every few years" is not the same as "3-day-holiday at the same time every year."
I was referring to Northern solstices for brevity. The intercalary days would happen at the same time, so folks in the Southern Hemisphere would get the longer-on-average set at their summer solstice.
Yes, and a lunar month isn't a whole number of days, and a solar year isn't a whole number of days, either. We make do. Perhaps by setting aside a set of 3 days that the solstice could land on :)
Sure, the further problem there is the December solstice can occur[0] on any of 20, 21, 22, or 23rd of December, timezone of the observer notwithstanding.
Trying to be tricky with fantasy calendars will often catch you up.
You mentioned this was a secular calendar, but appear to have designated the two current / conventional Sabbaths (once again Islam gets the rough end of the stick).
Obviously religious people will oppose a shift from the 7 day week structure, as it will almost definitely break their brand of mysticism.
The design also locks in a 3-day work week, and 2 days where 'normal' people are seemingly not expected to work.
Right now we're tantalisingly close to reducing the conventional 5-day work week down to 4, so I'd be wary about trying to implement a calendaring system (or a social structure) that locked us into 3-day work weeks. It just burdens future-us yet another road block in several years when we realise working 60% of the time is as silly as the equally arbitrary 71%.
The nice thing about the four-day work week discussion is that it encourages people (though not everyone assumes or understands this feature) to think more fluidly in terms of days-of-the-week that you work, and days-of-the-week that you don't. Basically I think it'd be a massive shame to retard that aspect of the thought experiment all over again.
Anyway, cultural baggage is hard to shift when trying to come up with a Brand New Calendar, and it's enticing to try to reject arbitrary dates.
F.e. rather than try to follow some earth / sun configuration events, I'd probably just stick with the 1st of January as the western world's 1st day of the year - people's DOB and age will continue to track accurately that way. (Look at the mess for genealogists created by the ~1752 shuffle).
Other examples are assuming we need 12 months -- we very much don't -- and your proposed design effectively has 14 months anyway, just two of them are very short & variable length.
You've settled on solstice rather than equinox for these mini-breaks, which may indicate that one or both of the solstices is when your culture currently/commonly has a holiday?
Season commencements, of course, are not consistently observed around the world. In sane countries like Australia we consistently start summer on the 1st of December, so that summer spans the 3 hottest months, and winter on the 1st of June, etc. Our seasons kinda nearly center themselves around the season's equinox / solstice.
Similarly the 30 day month -- I can't work out any advantage to that, other than to mostly retain the 12-month calendar you're more familiar with.
I'd argue trying to have a calendar month length be near, but very much not the same as, the lunar cycle, is actually worse. With a half day length delta between the two, you're guaranteeing ~60 unique permutations of lunar : calendar, so not at all "predictable" for the casual citizen.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice#Solstice_determinatio...