Re: language wars (results 13 September) last posting

[Matthew.Healy@yale.edu (Matthew D. Healy)]

In article <528lab$6af@mill.gdls.com>, schwarza@gdls.com wrote:

> summary of the statistics. It seems that the conjecture that Friday the
> 13th (or any other day) occurs more frequently / less frequently than
> anything is demonstrable, so demonstrate.
> 

But it is not possible, fundamentally not possible, that a general answer
to this debate could exist!  In most flavors of Unix, you get the
following result when you say "cal 9 1752"

   September 1752
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
       1  2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

because it was in 1752 that the British Empire (including of course
their American Colonies) changed from the old Julian calendar -- leap
year every fourth year -- to the current Gregorian calendar -- a year
ending in 00 is a leap year if and only if it is a multiple of 400
because 365.25 days is a little bit too long.  However, the change
was made at different dates in different countries, ranging from the
sixteenth century to the twentieth country*.  Thus, whatever the
answer may be, for, say, the English-speaking countries in the period
1500-2100, IT WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR OTHER COUNTRIES.

*The Tsars of Russia stuck to the Julian calendar; one of the many
changes made by the Soviets was the calendar.  This is the reason
why the "October Revolution" was in November.

---------
Matthew.Healy@yale.edu
http://paella.med.yale.edu/~healy
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