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Calendar Reform

Reasons for calendar reform

The current Gregorian calendar works very well. So well, in fact, that it is now the standard in every country of the world. However, it suffers from many problems, and there are myriad proposals for reform of the calendar to make it more logical, easier to remember, perpetual, more secular etc. These proposals range from simple tinkering with the lengths and names of the months, to more radical proposals such 13-month calendars and calendars that do away completely with our current concepts of months and seven-day weeks etc. I will detail some of these later but, for now, I have three proposals that I consider will iron out different faults that I believe exist in the current system.

Proposal #1

My first proposal for calendar reform does not attempt to be perpetual, mainly because, at this time, there are too many objections to this from around the world. Perhaps the time would be ripe for this at some later stage, and my second proposal (detailed below) covers this. This proposal, however, sets out to resolve the following problems:

1. The lengths of the months are irregular and not always easy to remember.
2. It is too biased towards Christianity, at a time when the general feeling is that no one faith should be considered above any other.
3. The AD/BC problem should be resolved once and for all.

So, my proposal is as follows:

1. The system of month lengths would be very simple and easy to remember: Odd numbered months have 31 days; even numbered months have 30 days, except February which has 29, but reverts to 30 in leap years. Basically the months would alternate between 31 and 30 days. However, a short month is still called for and keeping this as February would be logical. The simple fact that odd numbered months are long and even numbered months are short would suffice to remember the number of days in each month.
2. Change the year numbering system to HE, Holocene Era . This entails adding 10,000 to current year numbers, so at the time of writing the year would be 12,006. This has the benefit, again, of being easy to remember, dates in history that we are used to are easy to convert (e.g. WW2 ended in 11,945), and it would solve the AD/BC problem. It would also have the benefit of not being related directly to the birth of Christ.

So, the months in the new calendar would be as follows, with equivalent dates in the Gregorian calendar:

This system would entail minimal change from the current calendar, and dates such as people's birthdays could be mapped to the new dates in the calendar, e.g. someone with a birthday of 1st March would change to 29th February. Alternatively, they could keep the current date, although many would disappear under the new system (e.g. 31st August). Other important dates would not change, e.g. Christmas would remain as 25th December, although this would be the equivalent of 26th December in the current calendar.

I would also propose to change the names of some of the months, in particular July and August, as these are named after Roman emperors and thus not truly neutral. A simple option would be to return to the old names of Quintilis and Sextilis, although ideally all of the month names would be changed to something more neutral, e.g. famous scientists or whatever.

At the time of writing (19th August 2010) the date would be 18th August (Sextilis) 12,010 HE.

Proposal #2

My second proposal would be implemented if the objections to any breaks in the 7-day sequence of days that has survived for thousands of years were removed. In this system a very simple “equal quarters” method would be used. Each quarter would have 91 days, i.e. 2 months of 30 days and one of 31. Each quarter would begin on a Monday and end on a Sunday.

This would produce a year of 364 days. The extra day would be inserted between months six and seven and would be arranged to fall on or as close as possible to the June solstice. In leap years, two days would be inserted instead of one. These days would not be any day of the week and would have special names.

• Saturday, 30th June
• Mid-year Day
• (Mid-year Day 2)* leap years only
• Sunday, 1st July

This would keep the dates in every year on the same days of the week. It is very similar to the World Calendar proposal that has been put forward, but rejected, on more than one occasion in the past.

Proposal #3

My third proposal is similar to proposal #2, except that it allows for objections to there being any break in the 7-day week sequence that endured for over 2,000 years. This is a "leap week" proposal, i.e. every year consists of exactly 52 weeks (364 days) and a 53rd week is added every 5 or 6 years to keep the calendar synchronised with the solar year. There are many such proposals already in existence, for example the Symmetry010 calendar. My proposal differs from this one in a couple of ways though. Firstly, instead of the sequence of months being 30-31-30 it would be 30-30-31. This is for a couple of reasons, one being that Christmas Day would always fall on a Monday, which is easier for holidays as it is adjacent to the weekend, and the other being that the current 7-day period between Christmas and New Year is maintained, so there would be as little upheaval around this important time as possible. For the same reason, the leap week would be inserted in the middle of the year rather than at the end. Another effect of the 30-30-31 sequence would be that the number of normal working days in each month would be similar, the sequence being 22-22-21 in each quarter. This calendar, to distinguish it from the plethora of similar proposals, I just refer to as the "Equal Quarters Calendar".

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