What if there were no months?

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
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and people had to say Day 232 year 2007

that'd be cool...so who invented 'months' was it greek ? How did they know to give one month 30 days, one 31, and then february 28.

this is all speculating ... I didn't google anything.

give me your opinions before you go to google!
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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IIRC, the month division is the result of following a lunar calendar which most societies adopted before switching to solar calendars

thats all I remember
 

jjones

Lifer
Oct 9, 2001
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Married men go by menstrual cycles, as this has the greatest impact on their lives.
 

eoliss

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May 30, 2007
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I dont know who 'invented' months, but the calendar was changed/updated by Romans to reflect some of their leaders, namely Julius (July) and Augustus (August). It was a way to predict and account for the complete phases of the moon. It generally takes 28 days for the moon to complete its cycle. Interestingly enough, the English word used to describe the cycle of women is derived from the Latin word meaning month.

As for leap year, it was noticed that a true cycle of the Earth around the Sun does not completely match to the calendrical year, there are an extra 6 hours. So every 4 years, those hours equate to 1 extra day.
 

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
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Originally posted by: eoliss
I dont know who 'invented' months, but the calendar was changed/updated by Romans to reflect some of their leaders, namely Julius (July) and Augustus (August). It was a way to predict and account for the complete phases of the moon. It generally takes 28 days for the moon to complete its cycle. Interestingly enough, the English word used to describe the cycle of women is derived from the Latin word meaning month.

As for leap year, it was noticed that a true cycle of the Earth around the Sun does not completely match to the calendrical year, there are an extra 6 hours. So every 4 years, those hours equate to 1 extra day.

and 2008 is the next leap year
 

ForumMaster

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Feb 24, 2005
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i'm not sure who invented months, but i do know that at one point, the romans revamped the system and it is bascially what we use today. i don't know if it was the greek, but i know the ancient jewish people had different months and i assume other cultures like the inca or maya probably had something similar.
 

b0mbrman

Lifer
Jun 1, 2001
29,470
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We should have metric time.

Keeping measurements linked to real life things -- like the length of a foot or the time it takes the moon to go around the earth -- is so archaic
 

So

Lifer
Jul 2, 2001
25,923
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Originally posted by: pontifex
we should name our years instead of using numbers. like Year of the Prawn.

Yeah, except we'd have run out of cool animals long ago and we'd just have dumb names like Year of The Cuboza

Plus, you'd have no decades and no way of knowing when-ish a year was. Like "So jimmy, when was the cell phone invented?" "The Year of the ladybug?" "No jimmy, the year of the ladybug was 142 years before the year of the dungbeetle, when the cell phone actually was invented"
 

Platypus

Lifer
Apr 26, 2001
31,046
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We should be using ddate obviously.

[root@hostname ~]# ddate
Today is Pungenday, the 27th day of Confusion in the YOLD 3173
 

Cogman

Lifer
Sep 19, 2000
10,286
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heck, why stop at days? we could just all convert to unix time! its 1182509090 right now
 

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
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Originally posted by: So
Originally posted by: pontifex
we should name our years instead of using numbers. like Year of the Prawn.

Yeah, except we'd have run out of cool animals long ago and we'd just have dumb names like Year of The Cuboza

Plus, you'd have no decades and no way of knowing when-ish a year was. Like "So jimmy, when was the cell phone invented?" "The Year of the ladybug?" "No jimmy, the year of the ladybug was 142 years before the year of the dungbeetle, when the cell phone actually was invented"

Year of the Prawn, in the Decade of the Parsnip, in the Century of the Fruitbat
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: eoliss
I dont know who 'invented' months, but the calendar was changed/updated by Romans to reflect some of their leaders, namely Julius (July) and Augustus (August). It was a way to predict and account for the complete phases of the moon. It generally takes 28 days for the moon to complete its cycle. Interestingly enough, the English word used to describe the cycle of women is derived from the Latin word meaning month.

As for leap year, it was noticed that a true cycle of the Earth around the Sun does not completely match to the calendrical year, there are an extra 6 hours. So every 4 years, those hours equate to 1 extra day.

I thought it was because each day is actually 23 hours and 56 minutes. So we have an extra day every 4 years to compensate, thus keeping the months in sync with the seasons, etc.

EDIT: And going by the Julian Date isn't all that bad.
 

thirtythree

Diamond Member
Aug 7, 2001
8,680
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Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Originally posted by: eoliss
I dont know who 'invented' months, but the calendar was changed/updated by Romans to reflect some of their leaders, namely Julius (July) and Augustus (August). It was a way to predict and account for the complete phases of the moon. It generally takes 28 days for the moon to complete its cycle. Interestingly enough, the English word used to describe the cycle of women is derived from the Latin word meaning month.

As for leap year, it was noticed that a true cycle of the Earth around the Sun does not completely match to the calendrical year, there are an extra 6 hours. So every 4 years, those hours equate to 1 extra day.

I thought it was because each day is actually 23 hours and 56 minutes. So we have an extra day every 4 years to compensate, thus keeping the months in sync with the seasons, etc.

EDIT: And going by the Julian Date isn't all that bad.
:confused: If that were the case, night would slowly move times and after about 180 days, night would be in the middle of the day (i.e., noon would be the new midnight). Plus we'd need about 4 extra days every 4 years to get back on track.
 

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
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Originally posted by: Platypus
We should be using ddate obviously.

[root@hostname ~]# ddate
Today is Pungenday, the 27th day of Confusion in the YOLD 3173

haha, that one's too long imo.

I think julian date would be better ;)
 
Oct 4, 2004
10,515
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I always wondered why we decided to split a day into 24 equal parts and not 10/50/100 or something easier like that. Discuss.
 
L

Lola

i like months, i am not a "number" person... so... i don't want to say, yea my birthday is on day 59. BOR-ING.