posted on Nov, 24 2009 @ 04:51 PM
The whole reason the Julian calendar was even replaced by the Gregorian calendar is because of accuracy. The Gregorian was more accurate than
the Julian and so the Gregorian should be replaced by this type of system which is also more accurate.
Yes, the Julian Calendar had been in place long enough to require adjustments.
But, the Julian to Gregorian episode doesn't rebut my basic contention that people will pay only for accuracy that pays back its cost. Skipping the
leap day 3 out of 4 century years is about the smallest cost imaginable.
Those 10 or 11 "lost days" back then were to repair the drift already experienced, and could have been implemented while retaining the Julian
calendar. Which would have worked fine for a while before it needed any further attention.
The switch was a separate issue, to buy "low hanging fruit" accuracy in the future.
If you want more accuracy, all you need to do is add a clause to the existing formula: Every 400 years, we blindfold somebody to pick one slip from a
jar of 25 slips of paper, 3 of which are marked with an X. If an X is drawn, then the next special century year will not be a leap year.
It could hardly get any cheaper than that. Four centuries ought to be enough advance notice to prevent chaos in the calendar industry. We can auction
off the right to perform the drawing, which should cover the entire cost of the "switch."
I am not a psychic. When the Gregorian errors finally add up to enough to justify attention, maybe people will switch over to something else entirely.
I'll be long dead by then anyway, so it's all the same to me. But I doubt we will.
And if we do, then it won't be on account of average accuracy. Clearly, simply by changing the number of slips and the number of X's among them, we
can nail the average year to any accuracy you'd like, while retaining worst-case errors of about a day or so.
[edit on 24-11-2009 by eight bits]