this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This probably doesn't count, but Sosigenes of Alexandria was an Ancient Greek astronomer who designed the Julian calendar in 45 BC. This was replaced in 1582 AD with the Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII) and is still in use today. Of course both were found by science, but it took the weight of the Catholic Church to push for the more accurate calendar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

[–] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think the vast majority of scientists, at least computer scientists, would argue against the efficacy and accuracy of the Gregorian calendar.

It's more of a "we're stuck with it" situation than a testament to its scientific veracity.

[–] tetelestia@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Gregorian calendar is pretty solid actually. Other than a leap second every few years, it'll stay in sync for a few thousand years. You can easily calculate all leap days in a one-liner.

365 is semi prime, so we could do a 5 day week, but that's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. There isn't a lot to improve on the Gregorian calendar

[–] steventhedev@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago
  • leap days only coming at the end of the year, not in the middle
  • 5 day week
  • 73 day months
  • 30 day months with 5 non month days

Don't get me started on timezones

[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago

And that's the way science should be, with more data and better tools, you adjust and make things more accurate. I'm not sure what the efficacy issues are, but it's my understanding that current UTC leap seconds are put in place to reflect slight variation in the rotation of the earth. It is done in reaction to the earth's movement, so not something that could be predicted 450 years ago.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

at least computer scientists, would argue against the efficacy and accuracy of the Gregorian calendar.

Agreed. If I had it my way, basically everything would be using unix time.

[–] BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I refuse to believe anything before Jan 1 1970 even happened

[–] abbotsbury@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

And if anything did happen, it wasn't any good.

[–] tetelestia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Signed integers are the best integers.

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seasons get a wee bit tricky with 13 as the number of weeks.

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How so? They are based on equinoxes and solstices.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

but 13 weeks doesn't divide nicely into the equinoxes, so seasons will start at weird times in the weeks. 12 Months is divisible by 4 so seasons can begin at the same day every 3 months.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agh you sound like a C programmer. Just have a function do it for you.

I'm actually full stack C#

[–] tetelestia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

What would Unix time improve? Yeah let's schedule to meet at 1693456789, repeating every 7*86,400 seconds.

Time zones are a mess, but that's not the fault of the calendar.