Article September 13, 1900 Issue

The Russian Calendar

London Notes and Queries

It is stated that the Russian government is proposing to effect an alteration in their calendar, the dates in which since the end of last February, have differed thirteen days from those of western Europe and America. We are told, however, that they do not purpose to adopt the Gregorian reckoning, but to bring into use a scheme more simple and more accurate, and to invite other nations to accept this. It is then to be presumed that the plan in question is that of dropping a leap year regularly each 128th year, which would keep the calendar right and in accordance with the true lengths of the tropical year for eighty thousand years. Obviously this is far more simple than the Gregorian rule, which is this:—

Drop a leap year in each year the number of which is divisible by one hundred, unless it is also divisible by four hundred. This would keep the calendar right for over three thousand years; but, if it were further modified by dropping a leap year in each year the number of which is divisible by four thousand, it would preserve the year in accordance with its true length for one hundred thousand years. So that the modified Gregorian rule, with an exception of an exception of an exception, would be scarcely more accurate than the above simple rule, according to which the next leap year dropped, after the present one, would be 2028. To prove its accuracy it is only necessary to point out that it implies having, in every period of 128 years, ninety-seven common years of 365 days each, and thirty-one bisextile years of 366 days each. This makes in all 46.751 days in 128 years, or the average length of a year 365.24219 days, which differs only in the fifth decimal place from the true length of a tropical year.

London Notes and Queries.

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