Subject:
            Re: Aprropriate 33 year calendar!
      Date:
            Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:33:57 -0700
      From:
            Simon Cassidy <simoncas@pacbell.net>
        To:
            East Carolina University Calendar discussion List <CALNDR-L@ECUVM1.BITNET>

Amos Shapir wrote:
>
> If you want this scheme to be accepted, better NOT call it the "Life of
> Jesus" or "Anno Domini" plan!  The main reason there is now a global
> agreement on a single calendar (which is called "the Civil calendar"
> here) is that it's still a Roman calendar, and that even its main
> Christian connotation, the year numbering scheme, is inaccurate.

Right you are! Amos. As I said up front, I really am not interested in names.
I just called it the Anni-Domini system (note "Anni" for "years of"
rather than "Anno" for "the year of") because I fancy that Dee and his spritely
friends would have approved. We can call this 33-year leap cycle anything the
group wants. I hereby surrender that job. Ideas anyone?. Meanwhile I will just
use the phrase "new Common Era Leap-Year Decision Procedure".

Chris Carrier responded in a similar vein, thus:

>1) The anno domini era is wrong.  We don't know when Jesus was born, except
>that it was during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 BC (although this has
>come into doubt).  It is possible that the rare planetary alignment on BC 7,
>September 15, Julian, may have been the Star of Bethlehem.  But we don't know.
>
>2) One of the improvements I would like to see in the calendar is a
>season/quarter alignment, so if we retained January 1 as the new year day the
>vernal equinox should fall on April 1 (or March 31).  Or if not the exact
>date of the equinox, then the average date.

I think the new formulation below answers Chris' problem 1).

As for 2) I think we ought to take one thing at a time. On the one hand, the
more changes in the calendar we package together the harder it will be to
reform it at all. But I'm open to to any plan that includes a strategy for
having it adopted by the powers that really be. (E.g. the U.S.A., or ?, U.N.).
Anyone know the next president of the U.S.! I am supposedly, distantly related
to both Hilary and Bill! Can anyone in the group do better? I'm willing to take
a shot at interesting them with the following proposal:~

*************************************************************************

Here, then, is the new Common-Era Leap-Year Decision Procedure, which will
(initially++) triple the current accuracy with which the calendar follows
the Vernal Equinox++ and which will produce different leap-years
from the Gregorian procedure after the year 2015 C.E. (20 years hence).

*************************************************************************

Start with the C.E. year-number to be tested.

Get a new number by adding the number of centuries in it
to the remaining number of years (beyond whole centuries).
E.G. for 2012 C.E. add 20 to 12 to get 32.

If possible repeat the first step until the result is below 100.
E.G. for 1996 C.E. add 19 to 96 to get 115
     then repeat and add 1 to 15 to get 16.

If the result is greater than 33 then subtract 33 or 66 to finish.
E.G. for 2016 C.E. add 20 to 16 to get 36
     then subtract 33 from 36 to get 3.

We now have a number guaranteed to be between 1 and 33 inclusive.

If it is 4,8,12,16,20,24,28 or 32 then the tested year is a leap-year.

*************************************************************************

So, 2012 reduces to 32 and thus is a leap-year,
and 1996 reduces to 115, then to 16 and thus is a leap-year,
but 2016 reduces to 36, then to 3, so will not be leap in the new system.

One or two, double-digit additions, or, one addition and one subtraction,
will suffice for all year-numbers until 3498 C.E. Then, two additions and
one subtraction, or three additions, may be necessary (but three additions
and one subtraction will not be necessary until 340,099 C.E.).

*************************************************************************

++ The accuracy of this procedure with respect to the Vernal Equinox will keep
that astronomical phenomenon within the same twenty-four calendar-hour period,
every year for many centuries (possibly even millenia) to come. If we consider
calendar dates to be CIVILLY separated, by the stroke of midnight ZONE-TIME,
then these twenty-four calendar-hours are currently on the same calendar date
for the Eastern Standard Time zone of the U.S.A. (and all regions keeping time 5
hours behind Greenwich Mean Time). Though it does not currently exist, a new
time-zone, keeping time at 4 and 1/2 hours behind Greenwich, could be
constructed if, for instance, a country like Bermuda wished to promote
tourism with a Dee museum, dedicated to his ghostly calendar, and Shakespeare's
prescience in symbolically burying it (in the Tempest on Bermuda with
Dee/Prospero's staff) until the world was mature enough to adopt it.

*************************************************************************

A personal note:
The only name I care about will thus be removed from humanity's major method of
ordering its days and rhythms. Dee will no longer haunt the genius of Britain
and I can retire to Bermuda and devote my energies to preventing it sinking due
to global warming! Oh, and maybe I'll make a little money for advising
the Vatican how to adapt its lunar Easter tables! I've only been driven by my
obsession for this topic, since 1979 when Stonehenge first got into my blood. At
my current pay-scale, when I'm consulting on medical electronics, I reckon I'm
owed about $200,000.00. Clavius also made a blunder on the lunar part of his
calendar and only Francois Viete's death and King James cowardice saved the
Vatican from major embarassment that time. They really ought to hire someone
who can do the math!

Yrs, Simon Cassidy, 1053 47th.St. Emeryville Ca.94608. ph.510-547-0684.