Let’s face it; the Gregorian calendar can be a pain at times. Sure, it works, but isn’t it just a little tedious to never know what weekday a certain holiday or your birthday is going to land on next year? Or the year after? Wouldn’t it be great if each calendar year was identical, so that you’d always know what to expect? It might sound like an “out there” idea, but it is indeed possible, with the most recent solution being the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar.
Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University, Steve H. Hanke and Richard Conn Henry devised a calendar that would would make one year look just like the next, ridding the “issue” with the Gregorian calendar where any day of the week always lands on a different date each year. Imagine being able to schedule a yearly checkup with your doctor on September 1st each year, but know that it would be a Thursday each and every time. That’s one of the benefits the researchers point out.
Due to the fact that it takes an odd number of days for the sun to travel along the entire path of the ecliptic, ~365.24 to be almost exact, it’s impossible to have a “perfect” calendar, and this one is no exception. With the Gregorian calendar, one solution is to have leap years, where an extra day is tossed in every four years. The Hanke-Henry solution is to forgo leap years altogether and instead have an “extra” week roughly every 5 or 6 years. Given this, “most” years would be the exact same, not “all” as is being touted here.
The researchers state some tempting benefits with their system, however, regardless of the gotcha. A good one is, “Think about how much time and effort are expended each year in redesigning the calendar of every single organization in the world and it becomes obvious that our calendar would make life much simpler and would have noteworthy benefits.” This ties into the point I made above about doctors appointments and holidays. Knowing what date a day will land on from one year to the next has obvious benefits. Perhaps the biggest one? Never having to replace your wall calendar year after year!
There’s also mention of monetary improvements as well, where things like bank interest would be on a fixed schedule because each quarter would be identical. You wouldn’t get “ripped off” during the months where there are less days, essentially (curse you, February!). How the odd extra week would affect things isn’t quite clear, however.
What do you guys think? Is it time to consider shelving the Gregorian calendar that’s been in use since 1582? Are there other calendar ideas you are more fond of?