I think that few people actually think about why the calendar is structured the way it is and even fewer think about how to make the calendar more "rational" (e.g., each month having a fixed number of days, thus making the month an interval scale of time measurement) or consistent with the astronomical and seasonal events that were originally set up to reflect but, with the passage of hundreds of years, small errors accumulate to distort the calendar (e.g., making spring come weeks earlier in the calendar). A news article in the Wall Street Journal reviews these issues as well as some of the proposed solutions; see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126212850216209527.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTInDepthCarousel
Because of the intimate connection between the calendar and religious activites (e.g., December 25 is celebrated as Christmas by people who follow the Gregorian calendar while those who still follow the Julian or "old" calendar celebrate on January 7; I believe that Armenians traditionally celebrate Christmass on January 6 according to their reckoning based on the oldest gospels in Christianity -- perhaps it would be easier to simply make the fourth Thursday in December Christmas Day). This raises a question that has been highlighted recently by Norad's following "Santa Claus" around world as Christmas crept across the globe as well as video showing celebrations in China and Australia and elsewhere as New Year's Day crept across the globe: Given that Christmass/New Year's Day has arrived somewhere on the planet should we: (a) have a simultaneous celebration around the world given that the planet has achieved that event or (b) continue to have local celebrations and ignore that fact that what is being celebrated has already occured elsewhere (for the North and South America, they are really late to the celebration). What should it be? Think globally or think locally? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu P.S. To make this relevant to teaching, which should be preferred: the traditional semester system or the quarter system? --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
