
(May) maybe if I ask your dad and mom
Neil Sedaka, “I Love My Calendar Girl”
(June) they’ll let me take you to the Junior Prom
(July) like a firecracker all aglow
(August) when you’re on the beach you steal the show
Yeah, yeah, my heart’s in a whirl
I love, I love, I love my little calendar girl
We take the division of time for granted. How many minutes left on the test? What time do I get off? Is the next holiday on Monday, so I can have a three-day weekend? Some people even wear wrist devices which describe those divisions, linked to their health data, like their heart rate and whether they sleep. However did we manage before a wristwatch could describe our sleep?
The ancient people had to invent all those divisions from scratch. They did it repeatedly, across multiple cultures, using varying tracking systems. Their lives depended on observations–the rise of the river waters, the start of the dry season, the first bite of frost. I was well into middle age before I noticed how far north the sun set in the west in the summer vs. the winter. I think it was because I’d finally lived in one place for more than a decade. I bet even the Neanderthals figured that out before I did, since their lives depended on such things.
Today’s topic is the Calendar. How could they mark time, before writing was even invented? How did different societies integrate math with time? Were there different versions of calendars? Where did they stand on ending Daylight Savings Time?
Continue reading “C is for Calendar”