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Archiver > TMG > 2002-10 > 1033452573


From: "Darrell A. Martin" <>
Subject: [TMG] OT Re: Length of a year
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 01:12:58 -0500
In-Reply-To: <200210010024.g910O1WI023951@mail.infinetivity.com>


At 07:26 PM 9/30/02 -0500, George Mellon wrote:

>One year = 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.51 seconds.
>
>George

Hi, George:

This is the length of the tropical, or seasonal, year, on which most
calendars that we might be familiar with are based. It calculates to

365.2421934+ days

and is getting ever so slightly less over a VERY long period of time. The
Julian calendar's year length is

365.2500 days, or .0078066- days too long

and the Gregorian calendar's year length is

365.2425 days, or .0003066- days too long (and getting a tiny
bit further off each year)

J.R.R. Tolkien, who invented several calendars as well as languages, had as
the "standard" calendar of Middle-earth ("King's Reckoning") one that was
more accurate than the Gregorian. Tolkien stated that Middle-earth was "our
world" in an imaginary time; he was quite meticulous about such things as
seasons, phases of the moon, and the like, and provided a tropical year
length of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds. Anyway, in K.R. no
century year was a leap year; but every millennial year had TWO "leap
days", the second of which was a cause for much pomp and ceremony. This
made the year length of K.R.

365.242 days, or .0001934+ days too SHORT (and getting a tiny
bit *closer* each year)

This earned him an interesting trivia mention in "Chemical Engineering
News" (if I recall the name of the periodical correctly) a number of years
ago. And if you *really* want trivia, the Hobbits' version of K.R. did not
assign a day of the week to Mid-Summer's Day (or a leap day when it
occurred); so every day of their calendar occurred on the same day of the
week every year.

Darrell


Darrell Allen MARTIN
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois
www.darrell-martin.net/genealogy/


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