CYBERSPACE REPORT #30 - JAN. 7th EDITION

Bill Weber

"WHAT'S ON TODAY'S CALENDAR?"

How often have we said or heard those words? Somewhere in most of our homes is a Calendar reminding us of tasks that need to be taken care on that particular day.

At this time of year many merchants give out beautiful calendars to their customers as expression of appreciation for their patronage during the year.

Here is Encyclopedia Britannica's definition of a Calendar:
"A calendar is a means of grouping days in ways convenient for regulating civil life and religious observances and for historical and scientific purposes."

"The first practical CALENDAR to evolve from these requirements was the Egyptian, and it was this that the Romans developed into the Julian calendar that served western Europe for more than 1,500 years. The Gregorian calendar was a further improvement and has been almost universally adopted because it satisfactorily draws into one system the dating of religious festivals based on the phases of the Moon and seasonal activities determined by the movement of the Sun. (EB)

"The basic unit of computation in a calendar is the day, and although days are now measured from midnight to midnight this has not always been so. Astronomers, for instance, from about the 2nd century AD until 1925 counted days from noon to noon. In earlier civilizations and among primitive peoples, where there was less communication between different settlements or groups, different methods of reckoning the day presented no difficulties. Most primitive tribes used a dawn-to-dawn reckoning, calling a succession of days so many dawns, or suns. Later, the Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks counted a day from sunset to sunset, whereas the day was said to begin at dawn for the Hindus and Egyptians and at midnight for the Romans. The Teutons counted nights, and from them the grouping of 14 days called a fortnight is derived." EB

Scaliger, tracing each of the three cycles back in time, found that all coincided in the year 4713 BC, on the Julian calendar reckoning. On the information available to him, he believed this to be a date considerably before any historical events. He therefore set the beginning of the first Julian period at January 1, 4713 BC. The years of the Julian period are not now used, but the day number is still used in astronomy and in preparing calendar tables, for it is the only record where days are free from combination into weeks and months.

Our present day Gregorian Calendar is based on the original Julian Calendar with some revisions. Down through the ages different societies have created and revised their Calendars. The earlier Calendars being created to meet the particular needs of that society. For example: The Calendar system of ancient Egypt is unique. Unlike the Julian calendar system, with it's 365 days to a year, the Egyptians followed a calendar system of 360 days, with three seasons, each made up of 4 months, with thirty days in each month. The seasons of the Egyptians corresponded with the cycles of the Nile, and were known as Inundation (pronounced akhet) which lasted from June 21st, to October 21st), Emergence (pronounced proyet, which lasted from October 21st to February 21st), and Summer(pronounced shomu, which lasted from February 21st to June 21st). The beginning of the year was marked by the addition of five additional days, known as "the yearly five days". These additional five days, were times of great feasting and celebration for the Egyptians. Go to:
>http://134.29.9.229/egypt/dailylife/calendar.htm<

When I decided to do this article I did not realize the amount of interesting information available. For you with on-line membership with Encyclopedia Britannica there is a wealth of information on calendars from the Julian to the Gregorian.
Go to: >http://members.eb.com/<
A weeks free trial is available to none members. Once on their WEB site type "Calendar" without quotation marks into their search engine. The Britannica pages give a lot of inf. on different Calendars.: The Russian, Mayan, Aztec, Gregorian, Julian, Gregorian, Muslin. Inca, Mexican. Chinese, Jewish, North American Indians, Romans etc. By clicking on to (Next) at the end of each article you can access almost unlimited information of the calendar histories of any country that you may be interested . Most are fairly short but are very interesting articles.

Another WEB site with a lot of the same information is at: >http://calendarhome.com/< It also more variety of information. They even have a place where you can sign up for an online personal calendar. There is a page on the EARTH CALENDAR and so much more. I think it is a real cool WEB site. Take a look at it.

PROPOSALS FOR CALENDAR REFORM
The present civil calendar followed by most of the world has its origins in the early Roman civilization. Julius Caesar reformed the Roman Calendar in 46 BC, simplifying the periodic calendar correction by adding an extra day to February every four years. Our month of July, formerly "Quintilis," was therefore named in honor of Julius. Reform seemed imminent in the earlier decades of this century, as mechanisms for world-wide social progress developed with the League of Nations and subsequently in the United Nations. Two reform proposals then attracted the most attention. These seemed to offer the best solutions to contemporary time-keeping and scheduling problems caused by the irregularities of the Gregorian Calendar. Each recommended a perennial calendar involving the use of so-called "blank days," suggested originally, perhaps, by an American colonist from Maryland in 1745 writing under the pseudonym of Hirossa Ap-Iccim. The idea was later popularized by an Italian priest, Abbé MarcoMastrofini in 1834.

A 12-month proposals with identical quarters, known as "THE WORLD CALENDAR, and THE COTSWORTH/GEORGE EASTMAN proposal with 13-months of 28 days each plus one blank holiday each year and two blank holidays ever 4 years.
>http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~pymccart/world-calendar.html<

THE WORLD CALENDAR:
World Calendar is a 12-month, perennial calendar with equal quarters. It is perennial because it remains the same every year. Our present calendar is not perennial, but annual. It changes every year. It does so because its typical 365-day cycle is not evenly divisible by the number of days in the week: 365 ÷ 7 = 52, r 1. The unfortunate consequence of that one-day remainder is that the year typically begins and ends on the same weekday. So the next year must begin on the following weekday. This requires a new calendar every year.

Technically, our Gregorian calendar is a variously ordered cycle of 14 calendars. The calendar for the year beginning on Sunday differs from the one for the year beginning on Monday, and so on for all seven weekdays. Since the occurrence of leap year can alter any of these seven calendars, this raises the total to 14 calendars.

That's the mess the 365th day causes. If we took that day out of the calendar, the new year would typically begin on the very same weekday as the previous year. And if we likewise took leap day out of the calendar, the new year would always begin on the same weekday. We'd thus have a perennial calendar.

We can take a day out of the calendar without deviating from the solar cycle of approximately 365.24 days by simply regarding the day as a 24-hour waiting period before resuming the calendar again. These off-calendar days, also known as "blank days" or "intercalary days," won't be weekdays. It seems most reasonable to treat them as holidays.

That's part of the rationale behind The World Calendar, promoted by The World Calendar Association from 1930. Its perenniality has obvious benefits for scheduling and planning; and The World Calendar has other advantages over the Gregorian calendar too.

To prevent misuse of the name and corruption of the idea, The World Calendar has been copyrighted under the following description:
Every year is the same.
The quarters are equal: each has exactly 91 days, 13 weeks or 3 months; the quarters are identical in form with an ordered variation within the three months.
The three months have 31, 30, 30 days respectively.
Each month has 26 weekdays, plus Sundays.
Each year begins on Sunday 1st January.
Each quarter begins on Sunday, ends on Saturday.
The calendar is stabilized and made perpetual by ending the year with a 365th day following 30th December each year. This additional day is dated 'W,' which equals 31 December, and called Worldsday. Leap-year Day is likewise dated 'W,' or 31st June, and called Leapyear Day another world holiday in leap years.
Also on this WEB page is a long list of other plans for reforming our present Gregorian Calendar

Parts of the GEORGE EASTMAN article: THE IMPORTANCE OF CALENDAR REFORM TO THE BUSINESS WORLD. are quoted below. For full text go to:

Business men are becoming more and more dependent upon accounting and statistical records for the proper conduct of their affairs. It, therefore, becomes increasingly important that the periods of time, which form the bases for all records, should be invariable. Unfortunately, all the units of time of our present calendar are not fixed and invariable. The day and the week are invariable, and the year practically so, but the month, the quarter and the half-years are not equal and uniform.

Defects in Present Calendar

The variations in the length of the month cause the most difficulty to business. There is a difference of 11 per cent between the length of February and of March. There is a greater difference between the number of working days and working days are the important factor in industry. . . . There is variation from 23 working days in February to 27 in March, or a difference of 17 per cent. If, for instance, output or sales of a concern were uniform throughout the year, the monthly reports would show [variations], and obviously the manager would get a misleading impression. . . . All monthly comparisons are upset by this variation, and it is expensive to make the necessary adjustments.

Another feature of our calendar which causes great difficulty is that the month is not an exact multiple of the week, some months having four weeks and some five weeks. . . . This variation in the number of pay-days per year causes an endless amount of confusion and adjustment for the manufacturer in interpreting his cost and burden reports.

This variation especially upsets monthly comparison in those lines of business in which week-end operations are heavy, as in certain retail stores and railroads. There is also confusion in those small stores that make collections on a weekly basis and pay on a monthly basis, and corresponding confusion for those families whose income is on a monthly basis and whose expenses are on a weekly basis.

In addition to these outstanding defects there are other features of the present calendar which cause confusion. There can be a difference of three days in the two half-years, and of two days in two quarters of the same year. Holidays occur on various days of the week, changing each year; shutdowns for holidays occurring in the middle of the week are expensive in certain plants. Complications arise in setting regular dates for meetings, in providing for holidays that fall on Sunday and in reckoning the passage of time, as for instance, in interest calculations.

The "Wandering" Easter, another objectionable feature of the present calendar, causes the church year to be of varying length and sometimes causes dislocation in certain lines of business. Early Easters often cut down the volume of Easter retail trading and sometimes bring unemployment in the clothing and shoe industries.

In view of all these defects, the question immediately arises as to why the calendar should not be changed. The length of the months in the present calendar was not based on a well-thought-out plan.

Origin of Present Calendar

When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582 (in 1752 by England and her colonies), no change was made in the months, the only change from the Julian calendar being the arrangement for leap-year.

All the defects of the Gregorian calendar are due to three features:
(1) the months are unequal;
(2) the month is not an exact multiple of the week;
(3) the ordinary year consists of 365 days, just one day over 52 weeks.
Several plans have been proposed to eliminate these feature, but the plan which seems to have the most advantages and to be the most practical from the point of view of modern business is the Cotsworth Calendar.

The Cotsworth Calendar

In brief, the plan is to have thirteen standard months, with each month as follows:

The new month will be inserted between June and July, as at that time of the year the change will cause the least confusion in respect to the seasons. The 365th day will be December 29th but will have no week-day name. December 29th, to be known as "Year Day," will be inserted between Saturday, December 28th, and Sunday, January 1st. In like manner, in Leap Year the extra day will be placed between June 28th the first day of the new month.

All the defects referred to can be overcome by this plan. The proposed calendar will have the following advantages over the present calendar.

1.All months would have the same number of days (28), the same number of working days except holidays, and the same number of Sundays.
2.All months would have exactly four weeks.
3.Each week-day would always occur on the same four fixed dates of the month.
4.Quarter-years and half-years would be of the same length.
5.The month would always end on Saturdays.
6.A holiday would always occur on the same week-day.
7.The date of Easter could be fixed.
8.Yearly calendars would no longer be necessary, one fixed monthly calendar would be sufficient. Go to WEB site mentioned above and scroll down until you come to George Eastman for the balance of this article.
I have thought for many years that a 13 month - 28 day calendar would be more convenient that what we now have. The World Calendar, mentioned above, also has a lot of good points and at present seems more adaptable to our present system... If you are interested in what others are thinking or would like to add your voice to the discussion: Go to:
>http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~pymccart/calndr-l.html<

Here are some other interesting Links:
http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~pymccart/calndr-l.html
http://www.tat-usa.com/festival/fhistory.htm - Chinese New Year celebrations
http://www.ncx.com/users/Kazmiranda/chineseastrology.html - Astrology
http://www.ludin.com.au/~kio/cal/jan.html - First Day of Rest of Your Life
http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/eprebel/Calendar/Remarkable.html- Facts
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/sukkoth.htm - When was Jesus born

BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR