Monday, July 6, 2009

The slowing of the earth's rotation will lead to a break in the leap year calendar system.

I have a figure for the measured slowing of the earth's rotation. It is 0.008812 seconds per year per year.

Every year later that a given correction divisibility year occurs, leap year for odd corrections, common year for even corrections, the size of the correction is smaller. therefore, only one correction can be made in the future given slowing. another correction would contend with even greater accumulated slowing, which would require an earlier time of correction to produce a larger correction, contradicting the later correction time. so such a correction is mathematically impossible, and therefore physically impossible, given this calendar system, as well.

I have calculated modified fits, accounting for slowing, and find that one of the divisibility years--divisible by all previous divisibility years and an integral factor of the last previous one--is both a better fit than the previous corrections combined and better than those to either side of it.

You can either pay me to publish that year, do the calculation yourself, or find someone able to do it cheaper and with less bureaucracy than me.

The year i have calculated is the last possible correction under the current calendar system and after that year fit of the calendar will continue to worsen indefinitely, because slowing makes further corrections impossible, no matter how good the fit is in any one year.

My suggestion that i had calculated corrections good beyond the lifetime of the sun was made without considering slowing and i had thought that the mathematics would permit indefintie better fit corrections provided the slowing was gradual enough. that was before i looked at slowing more carefully, and now it is clear my optimistic view was in error.

Instead, it appears that the calendar's method of reconciling the length of the year with the length of the day is practical only for a limited interval of time. To cover a more or less indefinte interval of time, successive rezeroing of the years, and acceptance of a division of time into disparate administrative units, is the only solution.

As we have seen with the loss of the roman empire but the continuation of its julian calendar, with modifications, the calendar's administration is likely to outlive any given national government, including the united states.