How disruptive would it be to go to a thirteen month, 28 day per month calendar?

I think I would prefer to do away with months and just use days.

2015.238 rather than 2015.08.26.

Short answer; stay away from this.

I first heard of this idea over 40 years ago. And it sounded rational and well thought out, and made sense.

But the more I thought of it, the more it is too constricting in daily lives, a little bit too uniform and rigid.

While I don’t think it would be very hard to adapt, it takes a lot of fun out of daily lives. Imagine being born on a Wednesday, and for your entire life your birthday is on a Wednesday. And some people always have their birthday on a Saturday!

And when would you celebrate Halloween? On the 28th of October? or sometime in late new November?

This whole idea is as silly as the metric system.

On the surface, it appears to make complete sense by simplifying the calendar.

However, there are multiple problems that it would create, starting with the fact that the year would no longer have four uniform quarters to it. This would complicate corporate accounting practices that break each year down into four quarters. Likewise, governmental accounting cycles, which likewise operate on a quarterly cycle, would be disrupted.

Perhaps a better idea would be to fix the length of every month at 30 days, thus guaranteeing that the day of the week that a particular date falls on would float from year to year. Then there could be a three day holiday (to be named later) between June 30 & July 1 and a two day holiday between December 30 & January 1.

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sums up my thoughts on the matter.

I think it should have 73 months with 5 days each.

I’m ok with the way it is… maybe just do away with the leap year concept. So what if it randomizes things a bit? Shrug.

September, October, Nowonder…

Read up on the Jewish Calendar. That’s what it uses – a 28-day month. Problem is that every couple of years it gets so far off, they have to add an extra month (Adar II). This occurs on a 19-year cycle.

this is one of many links

What problem are you trying to solve with this approach?

Who’s first? The French tried it and it didn’t fly because the effort reaped so few advantages and other countries were not enthusiastic. There are much easier ways to add to the many holidays we already have.

That would work with the new 13th zodiac sign. I think it is Orpheus.

@talljasperman – I thought that month was Gluteus, and we’re supposed to be seated the whole month.

: P

The Jews have been basing their calendar on the lunar cycle for 5776 years. We Jews still use it for holidays, and my marriage document states the Jewish calendar date I was married on along with the modern calendar date.

A solar calendar makes more sense.

Lunar versus Solar.

The 365 day/13 month/28 days to the month calendar is a solar calendar, nearly aligned to the moon but not quite. There are a bit more than 29½ days in a lunar month; that’s why the Full Moon doesn’t land on the same day of the week each cycle.

So even with this proposed calendar, the moon phases would still move through different days of the month.

@zenvelo I always think of the Gregorian calendar as based on the solar calendar. The year is measured with how much time it takes for the earth to travel around the sun with a few tweaks.

@JLeslie Yes, the Julian and Gregorian calendars are based on time to orbit the Sun. So is the 13 month calendar proposed here.

Because this year June might be in summer but in 6 years it will be in winter.

@zenvelo Now, I see what you were saying. I was thinking 28 days per moon cycle, but right it’s slightly more.

You would think that a deity who was omniscient and omnipotent would also be a little more OCD and set the solar and lunar cycles up so that they aligned on a yearly basis so we would have a beginning and ending point.
29½ days, 365 and a bit…...bah!

My only calendar change would be to shift the calendar so that seasons fall on the start of a month. The Gregorian calendar could have done that, but I think the reason for having the seasons change around the 20th has something to do with Easter and lunar cycles.

@LostInParadise Seasons change at what latitude? There is a little variability as you travel north and south.

The official definition for the starts of the seasons is the shortest day of the year (winter), longest day of the year (summer) and the two equinoxes when day and night are equally long (Spring and Fall). The days for the start of the seasons are the same for northern and southern hemispheres, but the seasons being started are opposite.

@rojo The Deity isn’t interested in marking time, only man is.

@LostInParadise The Equinoxes (equinices?) and the Solstices don’t fall on the same date every year, nor at the same time of day.

The season starts are pretty close every year. There will be some variation for the same reason we need to have leap years. It is not something I get overly worked up about, but if you are going to change the calendar, why not have the seasons start within a day of the beginnings of January, April, July and October?