Nieuwe kalender in 2006?

quote:

a us physicist is lobbying for people to adopt his novel calendar in which every date falls on the same day of the week each year.

the current calendar, which runs for 365 days, was instituted by pope gregory in 1582 to bring the length of the year in line with the seasons. but because the earth actually orbits the sun every 365.24 days, a 366-day "leap year" must be added every four years to account for the extra fraction of a day. in this gregorian system, a given date (such as new year's day) falls on different days of the week in different years because 365 is not evenly divisible by seven.

that means new calendars must be printed every year, and the dates for recurring events constantly recalculated. "for many years, i've had to make up a new schedule to tell my class when homework is due," says dick henry, a physicist at johns hopkins university in baltimore, maryland, us. "here i am putting all this totally unnecessary work in and i decided i better do something about it."

so henry designed a calendar that uses 364 days, which breaks down evenly into 52 weeks. in his so called "calendar-and-time" (c&t) plan, each month contains 30 or 31 days. he decided on each month's length by forbidding the new calendar to differ from the old one by more than five days and by setting christmas day, 25 december, to always fall on a sunday.

extra week
his constraints meant eight months would have different lengths than they do now. march, june, september, and december would each contain 31 days, while the other months would each get 30. to keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. he named the addition "newton week" in honour of his favourite physicist, isaac newton.

"if i had my way, everyone would get newton week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.

despite this incentive, henry says he has encountered resistance to his plan - mainly because people would be "stuck" with a birthday that always falls on a wednesday, for example. henry, who is among that group, is not moved by the argument. "you have my permission to celebrate your birthday the preceding or following saturday," he says.

and what of the people born on dates that no longer exists in the new calendar, such as 31 january, or during newton week? henry suggests they celebrate on either 30 january or "consider themselves to be born on the fourth of july" (which falls on a wednesday).

sacrosanct seven
"i think such a calendar would be extremely useful," says owen gingerich, an astronomer and historian of science at harvard university in cambridge, massachusetts, us. he says previous calendar reform efforts have "crashed" because they disturbed the seven-day week considered sacrosanct by religious groups. efforts have involved adding an extra, unnamed day at the end of the year or, as happened after the french revolution, implementing 10-day weeks.

"this is the first proposal i'm aware of that gets into a standard calendar but doesn't have the pattern of seven upset," gingerich told new scientist. he notes the world was slow to adopt the gregorian calendar. england and its colonies did not switch to the system until 1752, nearly 200 years after rome began using it.

henry hopes to have rallied enough support for his plan to start it on 1 january 2006, when new year's day in both the old and new calendars falls on a sunday. and he is not stopping with dates - henry says the entire world should operate on greenwich mean time. people in the eastern us, for example, would have to get used to eating their midday meals when the clocks read 1700. "people are adaptable if benefits are there," says henry.