Anybody else think this would be a good idea? The way it would work is that you go to 12 30-day months and then have 5 (sometimes 6) non-calendar days that don't show on the calendar.

Hi, this is the first time I write something... :) I am not very sure about the calculations but I found a webpage that would be suitable for the answer. Besides, if a perpetual calendar was possible, or as simple as that, I think it might have been used a long time ago.

here is the page:
http://www.egypt-tehuti.org/articles/gregorian-calendar.html

storni - there are lots of ideas that are simple and worthwhile and yet are never adopted, or adopted only with great difficulty. Vested interests, tradition, inertia, "protecting one's turf", all these and many more things come into play.

That Egyptian site sounds like propaganda to me. Plus it only says that the Egyptians knew the length of the year with great accuracy. I would agree, though, that the Roman calendar is a horrible kludge. Perhaps the idea of the month could be entirely removed from the calendar.

Why not try a Metric Clock ? :)

The Percentage Metric Time Clock gives the percentage of the day that has elapsed thus far. One day consists of 100 Percentage Metric Hours. One Percentage Metric Hour has 100 Percentage Metric Minutes (PMM) and One Percentage Metric Minute has 100 Percentage Metric Seconds (PMS), i.e., One PMM = 0.01 PMH and One PMS = 0.0001 PMH. One conventional hour = 4.167 Percentage Metric Hours and One Percentage Metric Hour (PMH)= 0.24 conventional hour, i.e., one PMH = almost a quarter conventional hour, i.e., one PMH = 14 conventional minutes plus 24 conventional seconds. One Percentage Metric Minute = 8.64 conventional seconds.

http://nsm1.nsm.iup.edu/rwinstea/metricclock.shtm

Originally posted by postoak
Anybody else think this would be a good idea?

I can't see why that would be a better idea than the system we have now. The biggest reason why we had calendar in first place is for farmers to grow stuff. They know the best time to seed and harvest.

"storni - there are lots of ideas that are simple and worthwhile and yet are never adopted, or adopted only with great difficulty. Vested interests, tradition, inertia, "protecting one's turf", all these and many more things come into play. "

yep, I agree, I shouldn't have said that, but a calendar is used because of conventions mostly, like a metric system, it would be quite diffciult to adopt a new one.

"That Egyptian site sounds like propaganda to me. Plus it only says that the Egyptians knew the length of the year with great accuracy. "

I have another webpage:
http://www.auburn.edu/~kerrlin/Calendar.html

"Perhaps the idea of the month could be entirely removed from the calendar."

And what about the idea of the 24 hour day?

Okay, the reason for the perpetual calendar is to do away with having to buy a new calendar every year -- January 1st would ALWAYS be a Monday, etc. (And here is where tradition comes in in opposition: "I LIKE buying a different calendar every year. Last year I had one on whales and it was beautiful! The year before that I had one of French country scenes....").

In the clock area, we need clocks with programming so that I always have 3 1/2 hours of daylight after I get off work!

I found this

"One of the more notable mathematic accomplishments of the Egyptians was the creation of one of the first 365-day calendars. While modern man may attribute this feat to simple astronomical observation and mathematics, the Egyptians attributed this to myth. According to myth there were originally 360 days in the year, split into 12 30-day months. In the story the sky goddess Nut, who was cursed by the sun god Ra to be barren during every month of the year. She turned to the god Thoth for help, and so Thoth beat the moon at dice and made her give him 1/72 of her light. He used that light to create the five feast days that came at the end of the year. During these five days existing outside the normal calendar Nut was able to conceive. Thus you have a mythological, rather than mathematical origin of the 365-day calendar. "

By the way, I bought a nice calendar for next year, it has a lot of beautiful Peruvian landscapes, hehe. I don't mind if it changes every year, do u? :p

Thanks! :D
If I designed a calendar it would last only 6 months, and I would be 36 by now, twice my age and the square of 6, but I wouldn't like the numbers when I become 19. hmmm, am I being understood? sometimes I worry about my english being not good enough :(

storni - I just noticed you're from Lima. Welcome aboard. I hope to get to South America some day.

Ah, I see from your quote from that site that the Egyptians DID have a calendar similar to my idea, with non-calendar days. Interesting that they were feast days, that was what I had in mind for mine, too.

I would have 50 7-day weeks, and 14 or 15 "Feast Days" which were not associated with a day of the week. (Some of the less intelligent members of the community would have trouble conceiving of a day that wasn't associated with a day of the week. File their resistence under the heading of "inertia".) These would be in two groups -- an end-of mid-year group and a year-end group.

Or we could have 52 7-day weeks with a feast day inserted only in leap years. Since 52 is divisible by 13, the calendar could also incorporate 13 months of 4-weeks each.

Edited to correct stupid math errors.

storni - Su Ingleis is mucho mejor que mi Espanol!

"su inglés es mucho mejor que mi español"...we'll see. I examine what I write before I send it, so that not many mistakes appear...hehe

Plus you've got a keyboard that allows for diacritics. These generally aren't available in the U.S.

Welcome to sciforums! :D

Do you know much about early South American calendars?

hello adam :)

thanks for the warm welcome

I know there was a pre-Inca culture, called the Nazca which are said to have drawn an astronomical calendar in a place called the "pampas de Nazca". It is very interesting, I will look for pictures in a while.
I also know the Incas used to design calendars based on astronomical data.
However, in Peru, we use the roman calendar now, it is a conventional thing.

Originally posted by postoak
Okay, the reason for the perpetual calendar is to do away with having to buy a new calendar every year

Bad idea. Guys need an excuse to look at swimsuit models. That is about the only reason you need a calendar for. You can always look at dates on a computer or use programs like Outlook.

Oh, I also think we need a better base year than the supposed year Jesus was born (or Mohammed, or Buddha). I propose as year 0 the year that Columbus discovered America. Love him or hate him, whether others "discovered America" earlier, whether he was an Italian or a Greek, there is no disputing the importance in world history of Columbus's voyage.

If you're going for a standard dating system not based on that religious thing, I would not recommend the "America is the centre of the universe" approach. That's ridiculous. It means the majority of events will be in negative figures, for a start. I would suggest setting zero as the year of the estimated emergence of written language.

Adam - it doesn't have anything to do with America-centrism. It has to do with a new era in which all the civilizations became aware of the existence of each other. An important attribute is that we know, for sure, a specific year to date from, not something vague like the invention of writing.

BTW, today's date in YYY/MM/DD form is 510/13/17. :p