The 11 Days
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 10:18 am
Speaking on the subject of the predicted End of the World on December 21, 2012, purportedly from the Mayan calendar and Nostradamus, nobody says anything about the 11 days.
Because of calendar inaccuracies, the calendar "slipped" some amount every year, or something like that, probably due either to inaccurate Leap Year calculations or failure to drop the leap year on century years (years ending in 00) except every fourth one. This is part of "Zeller's Congruence," or the mathematical formula that tells you what day of the year any date is. To make the calendar accurate it needs to add about 1/4 day each year, and drop one third of a day each hundred. That's why there was no February 29 in 1900 and won't be in 2100, 2200 or 2300.
I looked it up; the Julian calendar had the start of the year wrong by putting the number of days in March wrong, causing specific days, like Easter, to move around.
Back around the 14th century, it was recognized the amount of error in the calendar was so large it required an adjustment to change over from the less accurate Julian calendar to the more accurate and stable Gregorian one. So it was decreed (by Pope Gregory, natch.) that on October 4 1582, the Julian calendar would cease to be used and the next day would be the Gregorian calendar day of October 15.
Popes weren't really trusted but eventually it was realized the new calendar was more accurate so more-or-less everyone in the Western world eventually switched over. England went along with this in 1751, making October 2 the last day on the Julian calendar, and the next day was September 14, deleting 11 days.
I went to Wikipedia and also looked it up, I was right the first time: it was the extra day in century years that caused the problem. Dropping the leap year except for centuries divisible by 400 fixes it, but to reconcile the Gregorian and Julian calendars, 11 days (and possibly more) have to be chopped out.
In fact, they had to switch over in Russia as the last major country to do so, and I think it didn't happen until early in the 20th century, and I think they had to drop something like 17 days to compensate. Basically, having 100 leap-year days every 400 years makes the year 18 minutes too long, so the number of leap days in 400 years needed to be 97.
Correction: Greece was the last, in 1923. Russia did so in 1918, and they had 13 days to adjust.
So what's your take on the fact all the people who talk about the supposed end-of-the-world on December 21, 2012, never say anything one way or the other about the extra 11 days. Was this taken into account, or (counting the added February 29 as one day) does the world (supposedly) actually end on December 31, 2012?
Or is the leap year day accounted for, and the supposed world end occurs on the corrected date of January 1, 2013?
Because of calendar inaccuracies, the calendar "slipped" some amount every year, or something like that, probably due either to inaccurate Leap Year calculations or failure to drop the leap year on century years (years ending in 00) except every fourth one. This is part of "Zeller's Congruence," or the mathematical formula that tells you what day of the year any date is. To make the calendar accurate it needs to add about 1/4 day each year, and drop one third of a day each hundred. That's why there was no February 29 in 1900 and won't be in 2100, 2200 or 2300.
I looked it up; the Julian calendar had the start of the year wrong by putting the number of days in March wrong, causing specific days, like Easter, to move around.
Back around the 14th century, it was recognized the amount of error in the calendar was so large it required an adjustment to change over from the less accurate Julian calendar to the more accurate and stable Gregorian one. So it was decreed (by Pope Gregory, natch.) that on October 4 1582, the Julian calendar would cease to be used and the next day would be the Gregorian calendar day of October 15.
Popes weren't really trusted but eventually it was realized the new calendar was more accurate so more-or-less everyone in the Western world eventually switched over. England went along with this in 1751, making October 2 the last day on the Julian calendar, and the next day was September 14, deleting 11 days.
I went to Wikipedia and also looked it up, I was right the first time: it was the extra day in century years that caused the problem. Dropping the leap year except for centuries divisible by 400 fixes it, but to reconcile the Gregorian and Julian calendars, 11 days (and possibly more) have to be chopped out.
In fact, they had to switch over in Russia as the last major country to do so, and I think it didn't happen until early in the 20th century, and I think they had to drop something like 17 days to compensate. Basically, having 100 leap-year days every 400 years makes the year 18 minutes too long, so the number of leap days in 400 years needed to be 97.
Correction: Greece was the last, in 1923. Russia did so in 1918, and they had 13 days to adjust.
So what's your take on the fact all the people who talk about the supposed end-of-the-world on December 21, 2012, never say anything one way or the other about the extra 11 days. Was this taken into account, or (counting the added February 29 as one day) does the world (supposedly) actually end on December 31, 2012?
Or is the leap year day accounted for, and the supposed world end occurs on the corrected date of January 1, 2013?