Tuesday, September 22, 2009

When the French reinvented the calendar

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5 comments:

Tecumseh said...

The new calendar was created by a commission under the direction of the politician Charles Gilbert Romme seconded by Claude Joseph Ferry and Charles-François Dupuis. They associated to their work the chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, the mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the astronomer Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande, the mathematician Gaspard Monge, the astronomer and naval geographer Alexandre Guy Pingré, and the poet, actor and playwright Fabre d'Églantine...

The calendar was abolished because having a ten-day working week gave workers less rest (one day off every ten instead of one day off every seven); because the equinox was a mobile date to start every new year (a fantastic source of confusion for almost everybody); and because it was incompatible with the secular rhythms of trade fairs and agricultural markets.

Another criticism of the calendar was that despite the poetic names of its months, they are tied to the climate and agriculture of France and therefore not applicable to France's overseas territories.

Apparently, the designers of the calendar were unaware of the possibility of a lunisolar calendar as their proposals do not appear to make any mention of lunar months, lunisolar calendars, or of the Metonic cycle. As a result the Republican calendar, just like the Julian and Gregorian calendars, has months whose lengths only have a vestigial relation to an actual physical phenomenon. This is inconsistent with Romme's assertion that the new calendar should be faithful to natural cycles and should not perpetuate past mistakes:

“ ...reason demands that we follow nature rather than servilely continuing upon the erroneous path of our predecessors... ”

The proposal for the new calendar is a litany of criticism of previous efforts, the previous quote of Romme being representative. As another typical example is Romme's opinion about the nomenclature of the French Gregorian calendar:

“This nomenclature is clearly a monument to servitude and ignorance, in which each successive civilization has left an imprint of its impoverishment. The astrological names of the days of the week and their cabalistic order which has been preserved since the first Egyptians and by the impostors which profited thereby and the blindness of men who continually preferred to suffer rather than change any of the idiotic habits of their fathers would dishonor our Revolution if we did not maintain the vigilance which has so successfully attacked all preconceptions.”

This tone sets a high standard by which the Republican calendar might itself be judged.

9/22/2009 1:07 PM
Mr roT said...

When rationality goes berserk.

Kinda like homological algebra.

9/22/2009 1:11 PM
Tecumseh said...

Hey, this abomination was invented by Lagrange and Monge (did you know that?) And I think it's fair to say these guys were Analysts, no?

9/22/2009 1:33 PM
Mr roT said...

Err...

9/22/2009 2:54 PM
Tecumseh said...

Gotcha! You hadn't read the long extract I posted, had you? Or, perhaps, your eyes glazed over that long list of pompous French names, and Lagrange & Monge flew by you? Whatever the case, it's Veuve Clicquot time, Mr Rot.

9/22/2009 4:10 PM

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