Re: Joining list. Calendar reforms.

I've just joined this mailing list. To start with, I have a question: How do I look at the list-archives? The information when I joined said to check at ?AO=CALNDR-L   I tried going to that as a URL, but that didn't work. So how do I look at the archives of this mailing list? The archives will give me an idea of what has been discussed recently, as a guide to what I should or shouldn't post. For the moment, lacking that guide, I'll just post what I was intending to post:

From the posts today, I can tell that listmembers here are technically knowledgable, and certainly don't need to learn from a newcomer :-)  

Still, when joining the list, it seems to me the natural thing to state my take on calendar reform, just to introduce myself, but not to inform people who surely already know about everything that I discuss, and more.

When I say or hear reference to changing the "calendar", to me that means the month-system. So, though it's often said that we use the Gregorian Calendar, to me we're using the Roman Calendar, with the Gregorian leapyear-system. The Roman calendar, in its final form, adopted in 8 B.C.  I find it impressive that we're using a calendar from over 2000 years ago, without any changes. Because of tradition. But of course, to the Romans, with their calendar, change _was_ the tradition. During Roman times, the calendar was continually being changed and churned, for all sorts of reasons, some reasons better than others. I agree with those who say we should change the calendar to a more rational month-system.

Of course there are several things that could be changed: Month-system; year-starting-time (with respect to the equinoxes & solstices); leapyear-system; fixed vs un-fixed calendar.

I want to comment on all those things.

Leapyear system:

The Gregorian leapyear system is accurate enough. Its drift, with respect to equinoxes and solstices, awar from its average position (I'll call that "drift-from-center" if I refer to it again) isn't a problem. The temperature, averaged over the years for each day, changes so little over the Gregorian drift-from-center, that it is completely swamped by the day-to-day and year-to-year change in actual temperatures. So nothing more accurate is needed. But I'd like to be a perfectionist and a purist, and have the  most accurate possible.

We sometimes hear that the Mayan calendar was more accurate than our own. That's true of their leapyear-system. As I understood what I read, they merely included a leapyear whenever one was needed. A simple rule. I'd like us to adopt it. Almanacs, newspapers, broadcast media, etc. would announce when the next leapyear will be.

As I said, though, we don't really need a new leapyear system. Just something optional that I'd like.

Fixed vs Unfixed calendar:

I understand that most calendar-reform advocates want a fixed calendar. There may be some convenience in having the calendar months' days of the week exactly the same each year. I don't know how great that convenience-increase would be. I don't know how much money it would save. But I'd like calendar-reform, and I have nothing against a fixed calendar, and if a fixed calendar proposal ever had a chance, I'd help to promote it, even though I personally don't know if it's needed. Even though I personally _like_ the natural and wild variation in the relation of the week with the month and the year.

But one thing I don't like: Blank days ("intercalery days"). A fixed calendar is ok, but there's no need to get one by falsifying the day of the week. Aside from the fact that that falsification is aesthetically unappealing to me, it has, and always will be, opposed by religious groups. As you all know, that's why the World Calendar was rejected. If its advocates had been more flexible about the blank days, we might be using the World Calendar now.

Of course the other way to have a fixed calendar is via a "leap-week". That's acceptable to me. It would cause a drift-from-center of about half a week. Again, the change in the temperataure, averaged over the years, over the range of that drift-from-center, is swamped by changes in the actual temperature day-to-day and year-to-year. 

Though, personally, I feel that a fixed calendar is an unnecessary complication, and though I'd rather pursue the perfectinist quest for the lowest drift-from-center possible, I understand that most calendar reform advocates want a fixed calendar, and so I would help promote a fixed calendar that uses a "leap-week".

One thing: If you're going to go to all the trouble of a fixed calendar, then I claim that you should make the months (or whatever year-divisions you use) have a whole number of weeks, so that each can start on the same day of the week that the year always starts on. That would make it easier to determine the day of the week for any particular date. For that reason, for example, I don't think that a fixed World Calendar would be a good choice, because it passes up that chance to get easy day-of-week determination. I know of 3 types of systems that would meet that goal: a 28 day month; a 14-day year-division; and Isaac Asimov's 91 day seasonal year-division. So, with a fixed calendar, I'd use one of those year-divisions.

This posting is already long, so maybe I should save year-starting time and month-system for a 2nd posting.

Mike Ossipoff

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