Calendars
Let's talk about calendars.
For the last 100 years or so, the de facto calendar used around the world is the Gregorian calendar, which has 12 months of varying days, together totaling 365 days, with an extra leap day inserted roughly every four years. The calendar also describes weeks of 7 days, of which just over 52 of them fit into a year.
I've never liked this system. The number of days in each month follows a strange pattern, with one month (February) having fewer than the others. The weeks do not line up with the months or the year, meaning that which day of the week a given calendar day falls on drifts from year to year. The naming is also inconsistent; with some days of the week based on the Latin names of the planets, some being named after Norse deities, and the months being derived from Latin, but having their names based on deities, actual Roman leaders, and simply being numbered; although their numbering no longer corresponds to what number month they actually are anymore ("sept" means seven, but September is the ninth month). It's a mess of a system that everyone has simply had to learn to live with.
Can we do better?
The calendar we use is largely based on a calendar system nearly 2000 years old, in a time we now refer to as "ancient"; surely we can do better. In creating a new calendar system, there are some physical properties of planet Earth that must be obeyed. The rotation of the Earth means that a day lasts just over 24 hours (we'll leave how many minutes should be in an hour and hours in a day for another time), and that the rotation of the Earth around the Sun lasts for roughly 365.25 days, meaning that a year must last 365 days with a leap day thrown in every four. These are the two planetary constants we have to obey. The number of months in a year, how long each month is, what a week is; these are all arbitrary, and can be changed for our convenience.
I stumbled upon Wikipedia's List of calendars, and while I assumed it mostly listed historical ones used by varying world culture (which is mostly true), I was surprised to see a number of somewhat popular modern attempts to rectify the calendar. The one that got the closest to success was the World Calendar, a system that keeps the seven-day weeks and twelve-month calendar, but rearranges the days in each month so that they follow a 31-30-30 pattern. It's a simpler system to remember, and means that each yearly quarter has the same number of days. However, this only totals to 364 days, and thus it introduces the concept of "World Day", an extra-weekly New Year's day that is not assigned any of the typical days of the week. This means that at the end of the year, the week would go Friday -> Saturday -> World Day -> Sunday, then proceed like normal going on. A second extra-weekly day for Leap Day is also added in the middle of the year if needed. It's an interesting system, with a number of benefits. It's still fairly close to the Gregorian calendar, mainly just rearranging the days in each month. The calendar would be identical each year (minus leap days), each quarter has an equal number of days, and the pattern of how many days in each month is simpler to remember.
The calendar gained popularity in the early 20th century, to the point where it was being debated upon by the U.S. Congress and the United Nations in the mid-1950s. There were some notable objections to the system, which eventually led both bodies to delay any further action, and the movement died. The first is that the calendar officially designated Sunday as the first day of the week, as opposed to Monday, which is preferred by some countries (and the official standardization of the Gregorian calendar, the ISO 8601). Under the current calendar it doesn't really matter which day comes first, as the shifting relationship between days and weekdays means its a relative viewpoint which comes first. Under this system however, it would determine which weekday is assigned as the first of the month, which some people feel strongly about. I frankly don't really mind either way. While I'm used to Sunday being the first day, we're already planning on changing what day my birthday falls under, so I'm willing to make the minor adjustment of thinking Monday comes first.
This brings us to the second issue, where the shifting of days per month means that after February, what day certain events fall on, such as birthdays and holidays, will shift (assuming we still want them to fall on the Nth day of the year). This would affect many people, and while it would mean each day falls on the same weekday each year, this was bit contentious. The final issue, and by far the most controversial, was the introduction of World Day into religious observation. Judeo-Christian traditions dictate that the seventh day is the Sabbath or the Lord's Day, and thus it is a day for worship. This works fine for most of the year, but when we suddenly stick an extra World Day in between Saturday and Sunday, you either have to go eight days between service, or it becomes an event that shifts its weekday from year to year (kinda like birthdays do now). This was the big sticking point during the debates in the 50s, and eventually killed the movement. I personally... don't have an answer for this. I like the system and think the other benefits outweigh this one, but religious observers won't agree.
But can we do *better*?
This is a fine system, and a marked improvement over what we have now, but it's still not perfect. Sure, we keep the 12 months as is, but they still don't have an equal number of days, and the weeks don't fit evenly into each month. There have been other modern attempts to come up with a better system. Writer Isaac Asimov devised the "World Season Calendar", which removed the concept of months entirely, instead dividing the year into four seasons (called A, B, C, and D) of 91 days each. The days are thus named things like "D-42", rather than by the current month system. It also includes a World Day like the World Calendar, since 365 isn't divisible by four. It's not my preferred system, 91 days is a long subdivision for my tastes, but I appreciate the hustle. This is a system with uniform yearly subdivisions, which can fit seven day weeks cleanly. It even accommodates the seasons, which has astronomical significance. It's not bad.
However, when the leaders of Earth turn to me to choose the next calendar (any day now, I'm sure), the system that I most favor is the International Fixed Calendar. It's a similar idea to the World Calendar, but rather than having 30 or 31 days per month, this system adds a thirteenth month so that every month has exactly 28 days.
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat |
| --- | --- | ---- | --- | ----- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
It's... beautiful. Each month exactly the same as the others, the weeks perfectly aligned with the months, the months perfectly aligned with the year... except we still need to have a World Day, no getting around that; 365 just isn't divisible by seven. Apparently the Eastman Kodak company used the system from the 1920s until 1989, with its abandonment corresponding with the company's failing fortunes, I assume as an act of divine punishment.
As much as I love it, this calendar does have the same flaws as the World Calendar, as well as some fresh new ones. The addition of a thirteenth month means that yearly schedules are no longer easily divisible into four quarters, which upsets some business types (I would argue that with evenly divisible weeks each month, subdividing is better than ever!). The odd number of months does cause a problem with Leap Day however. In the World Calendar, leap day can be inserted in the middle of the year, between June and July. Here, the middle of the year would fall in the middle of a month. As much as it pains me, we do need to break up the symmetry. We could place the day in exact middle, following the second week of the seventh month (we'll discuss what to call these months in a second), but that's a bit of a mess logistically. Instead, we'll place it between the sixth and seventh. Hopefully people are enjoying their extra-weekly day off to complain too much.
My Corollary to the International Fixed Calendar
This thirteenth month will also need a name. The new month can be inserted anywhere, but the typical placement is to put it in the middle of the year, between June and July. The name given by proponents of this system is "Sol", which I think is awful. The name, being the name of the Sun, is due to the month falling in the middle of summer... but only for the Northern hemisphere. In the South, this name is not appropriate at all (you could argue it's short for "solstice", which would still be globally accurate, but I'm not buying it). I also think that it's a bad name in general.
Since we're going around sticking in new months already, I would like to make my own extension to the concept, and come up with new names for the months altogether. The names are already inaccurate or based on (literally) ancient references. I do like the system of naming the months, and we can keep the Latin inspiration and simply use Latin prefixes for each month ("Uni", "Du", "Tri", etc.). I'm not well versed enough in Latin to establish the proper syntax, but I think having an accurate numbering of the months will be better than the current proposal where we keep the ones we currently have.
Conclusion
Despite this very inspiring and long winded article, this is unlikely to happen. Even ignoring the (admittedly quite valid) religious objections, I don't think the average person will be willing to remember a new birthday, not to mention some holidays that are very associated with their current name (Fourth of July, Cinco de Mayo, etc.). As great as I think it is, if we're going to spend the time training people to learn a new system, there are probably better subjects (I've got it all worked out, if we got the NFL to switch to meters, everyone else would follow suit...).