Re: [LEAPSECS] building consensus

From: Mark Calabretta <mcalabre_at_atnf.CSIRO.AU>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:18:04 +1000

On Mon 2006/06/05 11:07:00 MST, Rob Seaman wrote
in a message to: LEAPSECS_at_ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL

>Julian, just as the Julian succeeded what came before. That Caesar
>was more successful than Pope Gregory at convincing the world to
>rapidly adopt the new standard is a result of some pretty interesting
>historical differences between the two eras. The fundamental fact,

... but Pope Gregory was trying to do something harder - effectively to
make the Gregorian calendar retrospective (proleptic) so that Easter
would fall at the right time of year, and this required a calendrical
jump of 11 days.

A simple transition from the Julian leap year rule to the Gregorian rule
(i.e. without calendrical discontinuity) would probably have been more
"saleable", especially to people with no interest in Easter.

Mark Calabretta
ATNF
Received on Mon Jun 05 2006 - 18:18:32 PDT