The Abysmal Calendar has been developed as a replacement for the Gregorian calendar in its role as the global standard. It was developed anonymously from December 21st 2005 to December 20th 2007 in Vancouver Canada.
The Abysmal Calendar seeks to harmonise a number of different Calendars’ features in order to provide the most eloquent means of translating dates between one Calendar system and another, and for communicating dates across the world's cultures.
Abysmal Calendar’s Components
The Abysmal Calendar has several components, each of which assigns numbers, numerals or names to each particular Day, such that it may be more easily grouped into weeks, months, years and other measures of Days. The components of the Abysmal Calendar include:
- a Chromatic Counter
- Lunations (aka Lunar Months)
- the 52-Week Perpetual Year
- and other features.
In almost every case, the Abysmal Calendar begins the numbering of time periods with 0, followed by 1, 2, 3, etc...
Chromatic Counter
The Abysmal Calendar's Chromatic Counter will replace the Julian day number and the Unix Time Code by chronologically counting each second, Day, Lunation and Year in increments of 1 beginning with 0. Each Day begins at Midnight, each Lunar Month at the New Moon, and each Year a the Northern Winter Solstice.
The initial periods occur as follows:
- second 00 = midnight UTC December 21st 2012
- Day 0 = December 21st 2012
- Lunar Month 0 = December 12th 2012 to January 10th 2013
- Year 0 = December 21st 2012 to December 20th 2013
The Chromatic Counter is designed to allow for ease of translation between any two Calendar systems, particulaly solar and lunar systems.
The Chromatic Counter will also record all observational aspects of the calendar, including lunar cycles, sunspot cycles, synodic periods of Planets, transits and so on.
Lunar Calendar
The Abysmal Calendar has a Lunisolar calendar structure, assigning 29 or 30 Days per Lunar Month, 12 or 13 Lunar Months per Year. The Lunar Month 0 is the Lunar Month that contains the Northern Winter Solstice, or Southern Summer Solstice.
Pertpetual 52-Week Year
The Abysmal Calendar further has an Annual structure, which divides the 365 Days of the Year into 52 Weeks and 1 New Year Day which is not a Weekday. The Weekdays remain unchanged from the Gregorian, as most of the World’s cultures have their own names for these Days. The Abysmal Week begins on Saturday and ends on Friday.
The New Year's Day falls on the Day equivalent to December 21st in order to represent the Solstice.
The 52 Weeks can be arranged as 13 Months of 28 Days or 4 Weeks, as well as 4 Quarters of 91 Days or 13 Weeks. As such, each Week, Month, Quarter and Year begin with Saturday and end with Friday.
Leap Year Rule
The intercalation of the Leap Year Day occurs once every 4 Years, with an exception once every 128 Years when the Leap Year Day is not observed. This aligns the Calendar Year most closely with the Tropical year. The Leap Year Day falls on the Day before the New Year's Day.
Leap Year Day 0 falls on December 20th 2016.
Market Weeks
Different cultures observe market weeks of different lengths, anywhere from 1 to 20 Days.
The 364-Day Year of the Perpetual Year accomodates 7-Day Weeks as well as 13-Day periods. 28 per Year (364 Days), 4 per "House" (52 Days), and 7 per Quarter (91 Days).
Inspired by the Indonesian Pawukon Calendar, which has a number of interlinked market weeks, the Abysmal has managed to accommodate a wide number of different market weeks as well. The Abysmal Calendar also has a 360-Day structure: it excludes the New Year's Day (Dec 21st) as well as the four Days that occur midway through each Quarter (equivalent to Feb 5th, May 7th, Aug 6th, Nov 5th). As a result, the 360-Day Market Week Calendar can factor in Weeks of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20 Days. Along with the Week and Fortnight, this provides a potential of fourteen different market weeks within a perpetual year.
Although it isn't necessary to schedule according to any of the market weeks, it does provide more options.
Precession of the Equinoxes
Due to a wobble in the rotation of the Earth's axis, the position of the stars and constellations shift over time. This precession causes the North Star to change over time, as well as the position of the Constellations behind the ecliptic (i.e. the apparent path of the Sun through the sky).
The International Astronomical Union readded the 13th constellation of the Zodiac, Ophiuchus, in 1930. They've also clearly defined the boundaries of the constellations along the ecliptic, although these are not universally agreed upon by different calendars and astronomical traditions. Nevertheless, the course of the precession causes the sun to pass into a given constellation one day earlier every 72 years or so. Currently, the Sun passes into Aries on April 19th. In 72 Years, it will enter Aries on April 18th, and will take just under 26,000 Years to return to the point where it enters Aries on April 19th.
The Abysmal Calendar uses the New Year's Day (equivalent to Dec 21st) to track the progression of the precession. The cycle begins when the Sun enters Aries on New Year's Day (this is set to occur in over 8,000 Years from now, so don't hold your breath or anything).
Case for a Calendar Conversion
The Abysmal Calendar has been devised such that implementation from the Gregorian be as smooth as possible. The first Weekday of the Abysmal Calendar falls on the Day equivalent to Saturday December 22nd 2012. As both the Gregorian Weekday and the Abysmal Weekdays are the same, the entire Year of Weekdays align, until the following New Year's Day on December 21st 2013. This should ease transition from the Gregorian to the Abysmal Calendar over the course of an entire Year, without the elimination or addition of Weekdays as has been done in the past.
Furthermorem, the Abysmal Calendar:
- measures the Lunar Month, which is used by Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The Gregorian Calendar does not formallly measure the Lunar Month, despite its importance in calculating the major holiday of Easter.
- takes the Precession of the Equinoxes into account.
- Months become a fixed 28 Days or 4 Weeks, as opposed to varying between 28 and 31 Days.
- Quarters become fixed at 91 Days or 13 Weeks, as opposed to varying between 90 and 92 Days.
- Quarters begin and end on or about the four Cardinal Points of the Year, the Winter Solstice, the Vernal Equinox the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
- Months do not bear culturally specific names, which may alienate Calendar users from other cultures.
- combines Calendar features from the Hebrew, the Hellenic, the Chinese, the Buddhist, the Mesoamericans and the Mesopotamian Calendars, which support its claim as a more globally relevant Calendar than the Gregorian.
See also
External links
- theAbysmal Calendar (weblog chronicling Calendar development and features)
- Bible Gateway Book of Ezekiel