The Amber of the Moment

One of the things I do to keep sane my office more interesting is to, once every week, post a new trivia question on my door.  Largely, it's a suppository of useless info, via Wikipedia, that I look up the day before I share it.  Stuff you might be asked on Jeopardy, that kind of thing.  Recently, I've tried to associate it with a date in that week - some sort of historical event.  

After Googling September 2nd for 10 minutes, I came across this interesting tidbit:

"1752 - Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe."^[1]

Falling prey to the charms of Wikipedia, that saucy vixen, I just had to know what came before the Gregorian Calendar.  For those of you not familiar with that piece of knowledge, it was the Julian Calendar.

Which is a setting you can get for
your iPhone.  Go figure.

It was introduced in 46 BCE by Julius Caesar, took effect in 45 BCE, and stayed top dog until 1582 when Pope Gregory got his knickers in a twist.  

There is one major (mathematical) difference between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar. Julian splits the year into 365.25 days (the .25 for leap year).  Gregorian is 365.2425.  While this seems minor, it is sort of significant, as the decimal point difference results in about a 3 day shift to the seasons every 400 years.  Snow in August.  Or something.

But do you want to know the actual reason they changed the calendar?

Image via HumorHound

Easter.  

Easter, which was tied to the Spring Equinox in the Julian Calendar, was a slowly drifting holiday. The Roman Catholic Church wasn't keen on this little fact, so they tied it to the first full moon after March 21st.  

Much less arbitrary?

>.>

<.<

I'm not going to pretend to understand theocratic policies or what-have-you, because I'm not versed on the subject, and so have no right.  The only thing I really derive from this factoid is humor, hence my putting it on my door.  Beyond that though, I had a bit of a musing.  

In freshman year, an acquaintance of mine took a class called Philosophy of Math.  The very first thing they said to him was this:

"Numbers do not exist."

He dropped the class pretty quickly.

As an analytical person, horror is really the only expected initial reaction to such a statement.  But, strangely, if you think about it, numbers are an abstract construct.  And you know what else that means?  Time doesn't exist.  Yes, that's an oversimplification, but fundamentally, that's the case.  

I came across this quote the other day, and it really touched me:

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. an alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”  -- Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper.

There are about 50 currently used calendars across the world.  The Gregorian is by and large the most widely accepted civil calendar, and many of the remainder are based around the lunar cycle.  

Humans.  Such fascinating creatures we are.  

Until the next.