On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote:
>
> Oh wait, man 1 cal says that most countries had switched over by 1752,
> hence that funny date. Must have been ugly implementing that patch into
> cal.c.
>
> For those who can't make sense of this, Pope Gregory of many centuries
> ago discovered that the Julian calendar was off track by several days
> because it failed to account for discepencies in Earth's movement. The
> good pope calculated the difference in the days and also implemented
> checks for preventing this from happening in the future. The leap-year
> in 400 years which makes 2000 a leap year but 1900 not, is I believe,
> Gregorian in origin. I also recall something about an extra day every
> 3000 years or so.
Well, you're pretty much correct. I'm not too sure if it was the Pope
himself, or one of his Bishops. The reason it's called the Gregorian
calendar is because at that time in history, the Pope decided on these
sorts of things (just like Ceasar did before that).
Now think about this:
1 day every 3000 years. That patch shouldn't be too hard. But this will
be excruciatingly painful: Getting every system clock in the world to
realise that there is an extra day. Who do you suppose is gonna be hired
to do that? There could be a lot of money in this deal. Pity none of us
will be around.
Philip
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