Talk:Gregorian calendar
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An event mentioned in this article is an October 15 selected anniversary.
The story about Swedish adoption of the Gregorian calendar currently in the article is not consistent... it says that the extra day in 1712 was required to catch up because the correction had been missed, when in fact the program was to omit days, so any catching up would have been achieved by omitting days not adding them. This external link (http://www.geocities.com/calendopaedia/gregory.htm) gives a more complicated but credible story, consistent with this account (http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk2.htm) and this one (http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/tiderakning_eng.htm). I'm not sure how to fix it but will eventually, or if anyone else wants to have a go feel free. Andrewa 09:24, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. My only excuse is that comparing calendars that are changing is an inherently confusing subject. If a whole country managed to stuff it up so magnificently, I'm not doing too bad. I think I have the story right now, and I've revised the text. Cheers JackofOz 03:16, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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Inconsistency in reversion to 325 notion
Why is it that, though it is often claimed that the intent of Gregory's reform was to restore Easter to the date it occured on at the time of the Nicaean Council of 325, the proleptic Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian calendar by 1 day in 325? Gene Nygaard 15:23, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This is one issue that has concerned me. If the proleptic Gregorian calendar were aligned with the Julian calendar in AD 325, only nine days would be skipped, when the Gregorian was adopted in 1583. Before the Gregorian calendar was adopted it was found that the Vernal equinox was usually on March 10, so suggesting eleven days be skipped on adoption. The decision to skip ten days may have been a compromise.
The root of this problem is that the 21 March equinox date for AD 325 was wrong. It was based on Ptolemy's predictions in which the tropical year was reckoned to be 365.246666..(recurring) days and was by then about a day late.
Karl Palmen 20 Dec 2004.
Raphael's dates
I recently put a query on Talk: Raffaello Santi, asking why his dates of birth and death are quoted using the proleptic Gregorian calendar when he died a long time before the Gregorian was ever introduced. It's had no response so far. I'm posting this message here as well, in the hope that those who know more than I do about this subject can come up with his true dates. Cheers JackofOz 04:49, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Added my comments on Talk: Raffaello Santi. Gene Nygaard 06:28, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Greece not in Eastern Europe
This article says that "The last country of Eastern Europe to adopt the Gregorian calendar was Greece", yet the article on Eastern Europe states that "eastern countries that were never under communist influence, such as Finland in the north and Greece in the south, are never considered part of Eastern Europe".
- It seems like Eastern Europe is wrong, then. In this case, the important thing about Greece is that it's an Eastern Orthodox country. In that sense, Greece is Eastern European. Eugene van der Pijll 17:29, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I personally should not use "East"-"West" terminology at all in the article. Because it may have both geographical and cultural meanings. For example, the statement in the first sentence: "used by the Western World", looks like just one half of the Earth, if considered geographically. Considering Europe this also causes misunderstanding (in this case even another, "Cold-War" meaning is introduced): because of geographical meaning (e.g. Greece falls to the East in this POV) and the "Cold-War meaning" (by it Greece rather falls to the "Western Europe" category). Cmapm 18:05, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Something is fishy here, church wouldn't approve 10 day slip!
> A deletion of ten days was made, when switching to the Gregorian calendar.
Looks unbelievable. The church would never do that. The Bible says God created the world in six days and rested on the 7th. If the first sunday mass after the reform would not be exactly seven sunset and seven sunrises after the last sunday mass held before the reform, it would be invalid, because that would not be on the seventh day any more. <--> Jesus himself established the celebration of the day right after sabbath, on every seventh day.
Thus, if the ten day slip is true, in fact all "sunday masses" held since the reform are fake and invalid and it looks like hundreds of millions of people, who got null and void communions, are burning in hell just because of this mistake by the catholic church. Plain impossible.
If the church had to reform the calendar, it would definitely wait a little longer, until the difference becomes exactly two weeks and switch then, so the first Sunday Mass held after the reform would still be exactly (N x 7) days after Jesus Christ established the Sunday. Why would the RC church run to make a 10 day switch, when it already had 1-1/2 millenia behind its back? They could wait a few centuries more.
Did anyone honestly investigate this issue? I think if true, this must be the true reason the orthodox christians stick with the old calendar, not the western papal - eastern autokefal authority clash.
Thanks for your attention, Sincerely: Tamas Feher "etomcat@freemail.hu"
- The ten-day slip is true. But you're also right that the church did not want to interfere with the 7-day cycle of the week, so that cycle was not changed: Thursday October 4, 1582 (Jul) was followed by Friday October 15, 1582 (Greg). The last sunday mass in the Julian calendar was on Sunday Sep 30; the first in the new calendar was Sunday Oct 17; these dates were precisely 7 days apart.
- So this means that the day of the week was the same in both calendars for a certain day, but not for a certain date (e.g. October 15 1582 was a Monday in the Julian calendar, but a Friday in the Gregorian). Eugene van der Pijll 20:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Revealing the shape of Gregorian calendar adoption history
When I first read the existing chart I found it confusing, so I've edited a draft-for-comment image of the original programmed chart rendering. I've placed the national adoption dates in order, to reveal a graph shape of history. Reordering reveals a statistically attractive double watershed curve in three sections-- the initial cascade early adoption, the slower progressive adoption period, and the final cascade collapse of the anti-adopters' paradigm. Some version of the previous phrase could be added to the text. This would bring the reader's attention to the effects of historic facts in forming the graph's shape-- facts mentioned elsewhere in the article.
Missing image
Gregorian_calendar_-_Chart_of_national_adoption_dates_-_after_Wikipedia_(vertically_ordered_&_compressed).png
Image:Gregorian_calendar_-_Chart_of_national_adoption_dates_-_after_Wikipedia_(vertically_ordered_&_compressed).png
Maybe the original was done that way to save visual space. I'm not sure that's necessary, but if so, I have vertically compressed the draft image to the original's size. The resulting graphic text got more blurred by vertical compression. Is a shorter, wider font available to clean that up in auto-rendering of the chart?
None of the years shown are specified as "OS" in case that was ever an issue, say, in Sweden. Approaching this confusing subject as a non-expert, I would prefer a note declaring that all of the adoption years shown are valid for both calendars.
For consistency, Sweden should be dissected from the Sweden & Finland time line, rendered on a color bar with internal markers at 1700, 1712, 1753, and placed just below Protestant Germany.
Seems like a lot of countries are missing; were they all colonies? Maybe another note should state that.
- Milo 07:01, 2005 May 1 (UTC)
Scottish Calender Switch
Althought most people agree that Scotland changed New Year's Day in 1600 to Jan 1st, there is some dispute over whether or not it also changed to the Gregorian calender, before England did, on that date. This would make sense with Nova Scotia for example but since no one can come to definite agreement about the subject I think that at least the dispute should be given some mention in the article instead of just taking one line. I know this is obviously not the main point of the article but it is a factual moot point.