happy new Year and question

[JF Mezei]

Happy new year etc.

Question: is there anything significant about the position of the earth
around the sun on December 31 at 23:59:59 or January 1 at 00:00:00 ?


I can understand the seasons aligned with solstices and equinozes which
are specific times where the earth's orientation to the sun provides for
equal day/night across most of planet. This is visible from within the
earth. However, the position of earth around the sun isn't, unless I
guess you are looking at stars.

So if you notice repeating pattern of stars which repeats itself every
365.25 days, why choose december 31 as the end of the year? Is there
something special about the stars at end of year that make it unique?

[Alain Fournier]

A little over 2000 years ago the new year started March 1st. That's why
months September through December have names based on the latin numbers
seven through 10 (and not 9 through 12). If I recall correctly, it is
Julius Caesar who chose 1st of January for the New Year. I don't
remember the reason, but I'm quite sure it was nothing astronomical. I
think it was for some political reason. So, no there is nothing special
about the 1st of January in the position of the Sun or the stars.


Alain Fournier

[David Spain]

Hope this helps:
http://www.skip.net/DEC/ultimate-spr-leap-year-mark_crispin.html

January 1st marking the beginning of the new year has nothing to do with
seasons or the vernal equinox, as did prior denotation of the New Year
but since 153 BCE was the day the Roman consuls took office, by decree
of Julius Caesar.

We will never really know what might have become of the Gregorian
calendar had it not been for the unfortunate early demise of Regiomontanus.

Dave

[David Spain]

Well it might have been known as the Sixtus Calendar.

I would be remiss to fail to mention that the base Scholia for the 'DEC
SPR' (Software Problem Report) origination of the above link is real and
was authored by my good friend Stan Rabinowitz as later enhanced by Mark
Crispin. It came about when a VMS user submitted an SPR, if I remember
correctly sometime in the 1980s, claiming that the VAX/VMS Operating
System was incorrectly inserting a leap day for the year 2000, when in
fact it is a leap year by application of the rule of being a century
year divisible by 400.

Dave

[David Spain]

On 2023-01-19 7:18 PM, David Spain wrote:
> fact it is a leap year by application of the rule of being a century
> year divisible by 400.
>
> Dave
>

But not by 4000. The year 4000 is not a leap year I should point out.

Dave

[Alain Fournier]

I don't think there is a central authority somewhere to make that
decision. So, it could happen than in the year 4000, we get an
international calendar mess as has happened while switching to the
Gregorian calendar. Meaning maybe March 1st, 4000 in some countries will
be February 29th in other countries. Hopefully, 1977 years will be
enough to get an agreement and resolve the matter.


Alain Fournier