Pre-Julian…As you probably know, the Romans earlier had a calendar that started at the Vernal Equinox. …with March 1st.
That’s why September, October, November & December are so-named. …& so, resetting it wouldn’t be a problem. Just start the year as close as possible to the Vernal Equinox. You could do that by the FRC’s method: March 1st would be the day that contains the Vernal Equinox. …or better yet, the day that starts closest to Vernal Equinox. …the actual astronomical Vernal Equinox. …or an arithmetical-approximation. Most calendars us an approximation. e.g, The Gregorian rule was designed to approximate having the Vernal Equinox on March 21st, because that’s when it was in the Julian Calendar. You could just say that, the calendar’s first year starts at that year’s Vernal Equinox. & that each year starts on the day that starts closest to N days after the previous one. …where N is the actual length (including the fraction) of a Vernal Equinox tropical-year ( the duration between successive Vernal Equinoxes). That’s if you want to optimize for minimum calendrical-drift-rate of the Vernal Equinox. If you want to minimize the average calendrical-drift over all the year’s days, then use, for N, the length of the Mean Tropical Year. It’s about 365.2422 days, but you could look it up for more accuracy. Likewise, the length of the Vernal Equinox tropical year can be looked up. BTW, the tropical year’s length, reckoned at different Solar ecliptic longitudes, differs due to precession of the equinoxes & the ellipticity of our orbit. The tropical year-lengths are all gradually changing, largely because of precision of the apsides. Currently, the most nearly constant-length tropical year is the north solstice tropical year. I.e. the summer solstice of the Nortern Hemispher On Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 5:49 AM Jack Aubert <j...@chezaubert.net> wrote: > Michael, > > > > I don’t think anybody is seriously contemplating calendar reform. I got a > copy of the English version of the French Republican calendar from Frank > King and It is hanging on a wall in my house. I love it because it is > historically interesting and, in retrospect, amusingly goofy. The names > of the months were parodied by contemporaneous English writers as > adjectives like “sneezy, chilly, and breezy.” I would actually love to > have a French version if anybody publishes one. It would have to retain > the juxtaposition of the normal calendar with the FRC calendar so you can > tell what today’s day and month would have been called. > > > > I wonder if anybody can figure out a way to juxtapose a pre-Julian Roman > calendar onto a modern calendar. I think it would have to be arbitrarily > reset somehow rather than fast forwarded. > > > > Jack Aubert > > > > *From:* sundial <sundial-boun...@uni-koeln.de> *On Behalf Of *Michael > Ossipoff > *Sent:* Saturday, September 17, 2022 9:02 PM > *To:* fabio.sav...@nonvedolora.it > *Cc:* Sundial sundiallist <sundial@uni-koeln.de> > *Subject:* Re: Republican Calendar, Year 231 > > > > . > > The first thing I want to emphasize is that calendar-reform is not going > to happen. What to do? Just deal with the calendar that we have…the one > that we’ve had for two millennia.(…but with its Gregorian-modernized > leapyear-system). Don’t waste your time on calendar-reform, because, for > one thing, it isn’t going to happen. > > . > > But suppose that there’s an alternative calendar that you like. Calendar > reform advocates are notoriously un-cooperative among eachother, & that > further eliminates any chance of reform. But, even if the calendar were > changed, then with the many different proposals around, what is the chance > that the one that you’d like would be the one that somehow got adopted? > Zilch. So that’s another reason to forget calendar-reform & just deal with > the calendar that we have, the 2000-year-old Roman Calendar. > > . > > The OP was advocating for the French Republican Calendar, translated into > your particular country’s language. > > . > > …but would its seasons be relevant to those who reside south of the > equator, or in the tropical regions? No. > > . > > It would be a seasonal calendar based on the seasons of one particular > lat-band. Hardly something that could be called internationally-fair or > meaningful. > > . > > But let’s look at some other attributes of the French Republican Calendar > (FRC): > > . > > It starts its year at the Autumnal Equinox, for those north of the > equator. (A more generally meaningful name for that equinox would be the > Southward-Equinox.) > > . > > Why? Well, the French Republican government started around that time of > the year. That was a commendable government, & an improvement on what it > replaced, but is its commemoration really what we need as the basis of our > year-start choice? > > . > > There are good arguments for starting the year at the > northern-hemisphere’s Vernal-Equinox, Winter-Solstice, or > Summer-Solstice...or at the ancient Celts’ year-start at their Samhain > holiday, which corresponds to our Holloween...or at the start of October, > the Roman month that contains Samhain...or at the start of Scorpio the > ecliptic-month that contains Samhain. > > But I’ll spare you the year-start discussion, because, for one thing there > isn’t going to be a new calendar. > > . > > Resuming the attributes of the FRC: > > . > > The FRC is a year of 12 months of exactly 30 days each. Seems like a nice > aesthetic simplification. But it leaves 5 or 6 days that aren’t any day of > the week, & don’t belong to any month …not so neat after-all. > > . > > Days that aren’t any day-of-the-week are called “blank-days”. They’re a > mess, & that’s too obvious to need any explanation. > > . > > But, whatever reform-calendar you might like, its unlikely that it would > be the one adopted, among the many proposals. …as if there were even any > chance of any new calendar being adopted anyway. >
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