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How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

davidallengreen.com

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Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#41

Post by croes »

eru wrote: post #37
croes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? You could also eg pick where earth is closest or farthest from the sun, or at exactly average distance or anything like that. Hard to measure for people back then. Solstices and the equinoxes are easier. > Christmas wasn't invented yet whan Julius Caesar was alive. Doesn’t necessarily mean that Christmas was invented when the Calendar was fixed. The logic is the other way around. Solstices and the equinoxes ar…

Well, you were talking about 'rational' points, not what's easy to measure. The Egyptians picked the appearance of a certain store above the horizon as their fixed point for the year (or something like that). That was rational for them, but doesn't have all that much to do with equinoxes.

It’s rational to use easy to measure points.

Your example of the Egyptians is also easy to measure.

I guess at that point mythology kicks in. Could explain why the winter solstice is often used: the dark timed are over, the days get brighter.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#42

Post by bawolff »

ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #16
bawolff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And leap years get more complicated.

It's just another day isn't it?

Well if you want to keep the whole number of weeks thing, you are then doing a leap week every 7 years except for multiples of 28, or something like that. Or if you want to keep each week same number of days maybe a leap month.

Of course none of this is unheard of. The jewish calendar adds a leap month every 19 years to keep in sync with both the moon and the sun. Or if you want to go in the other direction you could just have one day not part of any week (cotsworth calendar)

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#43

Post by KeplerBoy »

bee_rider wrote: post #36
KeplerBoy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but what weekday would it have? Would we have a repeated Sunday there?

We’ll call it KeplerBoy day in your honor, a new unique day.

I'd like Keplerday. Seems appropriate.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#44

Post by freeone3000 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #18
adrian_b wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern he…

> The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes. It makes sense to use those as a basis. And it makes sense to line up the months with those points. But if the months don't line up, I think aligning with the nearest month is much better than not doing so. At least on the kind of solar calendar we use.

The solar calendar we use dictates the length of the year, but the months and days on that year can simply be shifted arbitrarily.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#45

Post by kybernetikos »

cjs_ac wrote: post #2

In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

I believe IBM pay its UK workers on the 6th because at one point they wanted to move pay day to as early as possible without paying more than 12 times in a tax year. This means that the day lots of people get paid in 2025 has been set by a deliberate simplification Julius Ceasar made in 46BC. That's technical debt that lasted a long time.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#46

Post by tzs »

kgwgk wrote: post #40
tzs wrote: post #38

A decent case can be made for March 1 as the start of the year. With March 1 as the start of the year the extra day in leap years then comes on the last day of the year. This makes dealing with leap years when calculating the day of the week from a date simpler. It also makes the names of September, October, November, and December make sense. Those names come from the Roman words for 7, 8, 9, and 10, which were the n…

> The Romans switch the start to January sometime around 700 BCE That doesn’t look right.

Well, that’s what the internet told me. But checking again it is also telling me 45 BC and 153 BC.

The site that gave me the 700 BC date said it was done by king Numa Pompilius. Wikipedia’s article on him says that Plutarch is the source for the claim Numa moved the new year to January.

But Plutarch was writing around the 2nd century and Wikipedia says his writings about Numa give unique information on the Roman calendar which suggests that there aren’t other sources. Probably not worth trusting a single source that old writing about something 900 years older.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#47

Post by eru »

croes wrote: post #41
eru wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you were talking about 'rational' points, not what's easy to measure. The Egyptians picked the appearance of a certain store above the horizon as their fixed point for the year (or something like that). That was rational for them, but doesn't have all that much to do with equinoxes.

It’s rational to use easy to measure points. Your example of the Egyptians is also easy to measure. I guess at that point mythology kicks in. Could explain why the winter solstice is often used: the dark timed are over, the days get brighter.

I think the Egyptians cared about the flooding of the Nile, and that often happened around the time when that star showed up.

(This is all from memory, please don't quote me on this.)

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#48

Post by fragmede »

kybernetikos wrote: post #45
cjs_ac wrote: post #2

In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

I believe IBM pay its UK workers on the 6th because at one point they wanted to move pay day to as early as possible without paying more than 12 times in a tax year. This means that the day lots of people get paid in 2025 has been set by a deliberate simplification Julius Ceasar made in 46BC. That's technical debt that lasted a long time.

Looking at the names of the months, September is the 9th month and October is the 10th? December is the 12th? Those names changed to those numberings roughly about the same time, and is also tech debt.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#49

Post by madcaptenor »

stevetodd wrote: post #11
mmooss wrote: post #4

In Exodus 12:1-2, at the beginning of the section that decrees Passover, God also tells Moses and Aaron that the month of Passover is the first month of the year: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ..."

March coincides with the first month of the Jewish calendar. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2164005/jewis... It was also the first month of the Roman calendar until January and February were added. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martius_(month)

There's a weird parallel between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars. In both cases, the historic "new year" is in spring (Hebrew Nisan, Gregorian March), perhaps to coincide with planting? And in both cases intercalation happens right before that, at the end of the year - the Hebrew calendar duplicates Adar, the month before Nisan, and the Gregorian has an extra day of February. (Historically this was February 24 happening twice, not an additional day numbered 29, which is a whole other story.) But in both cases the year number increments at a different time - Hebrew Tishri in the fall, Gregorian January in the winter - so the intercalation appears to happen at some "random" moment within the year.

Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year

#50

Post by ghaff »

mmooss wrote: post #26
fsckboy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US tax return forms/documentation is due April 15, but the taxes needed to be paid by the previous Jan 15 (minus a several month reprieve for taxes on income that exceeds your previous year's income) on April 15 the taxes on your first quarter of the current year are also due.

Jan 15 is quarterly estimates for those who have them. Annual taxes are due April 15 (as well as Q1 estimates).

I'm not sure of the history of April 15 specifically, but April or so is probably about the earliest you can easily get all your reconciled financial statements if your finances are at all complex and put together your tax filings. I don't even get a W-2 until late January and I have at least one statement that tends to trail into early March.
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