> Warner Losh wrote: > >A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better > >word for that implication. > > In the realm of calendars the terminology is "arithmetic" versus > "observational". That's one of the things I included at the start of > this thread. I'd also like to throw in the word "deterministic".
I missed that terminology, and I like it a lot better than the terminology I've been using. Thank you! UTC is an observationally based time scale... I like how that sounds... > There is the alternate point of view that the calendar in actual civil use > in a particular locality, changing between different arithmetic calendars > at different times, constitutes an unpredictable observational calendar. > Perhaps we need a concept of "calendar zone" analogous to time zone, > with a calendar zone database to match. The Theory file in the current time zone files has some very interesting information about this. There's a 'Calendrical Issues' section that talks about these issues. There's a reference to a book http://emr.cs.uiuc.edu/home/reingold/calendar-book/index.shtml which is good. The problem is that many authoritative sources on these matters often disagree what happened. I'm sure that someone has taken this as the basis for starting a more comprehensive database. Here's a few of my favorite entries: >> In 1700, Denmark made the transition from Julian to Gregorian. Sweden >> decided to *start* a transition in 1700 as well, but rather than have one of >> those unsightly calendar gaps :-), they simply decreed that the next leap >> year after 1696 would be in 1744 -- putting the whole country on a calendar >> different from both Julian and Gregorian for a period of 40 years. >> >> However, in 1704 something went wrong and the plan was not carried through; >> they did, after all, have a leap year that year. And one in 1708. In 1712 >> they gave it up and went back to Julian, putting 30 days in February that >> year!... >> Russia >> >> From Chris Carrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (1996-12-02): >> On 1929-10-01 the Soviet Union instituted an ``Eternal Calendar'' >> with 30-day months plus 5 holidays, with a 5-day week. >> On 1931-12-01 it changed to a 6-day week; in 1934 it reverted to the >> Gregorian calendar while retaining the 6-day week; on 1940-06-27 it >> reverted to the 7-day week. With the 6-day week the usual days >> off were the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of the month. >>If your source is correct, how come documents between 1929 -- 1940 were >>still dated using the conventional, Gregorian calendar? >>I can post a scan of a document dated December 1, 1934, signed by >>Yenukidze, the secretary, on behalf of Kalinin, the President of the >>Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet, if you like.
