Wednesday 29 February 2012

intercalary or lieblings

I understand the method and the modulo behind leap years, although it seems a rather inelegant solution just to tack on an extra day to poor, over-burdened February.

Devising a calendar that preserves all the human cogs--work-a-day stuff and holidays, and matches to the procession of the seasons is almost without maintenance and human-intervention is pretty impressive in itself. I never noticed before, however, that some major (depending on one’s point-of-view, of course, and I am sure others as well) anniversaries are synchronized with the uncommon year. I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the modern spectacles of the American presidential election, the Summer Olympics or the European soccer championships fall on leap years: was there some administrative impetus with this make-up day? A single day by most estimates does not compensate for all the exposure to campaigning, nor it is enough time maybe for procrastinators to complete projects. I am not sure. That the 29th of February might be a cue associated with such sport makes me think about a story that I can’t fully recall, but it featured an isolated man, who was completely mathematically illiterate, and invented his own counting system. It was not binary or base-ten in a way that anyone else could understand, but he associated items in his environment, specific and ranging in the hundreds, with the cardinal numbers he was ignorant of. Instead of “1,2,3” he used “shellfish, clam, lawnmower, potato, tin-can-buried-on-the-beach.” I guess some societies name every day of the year, with a specificity greater than just a coordinate in time. I wonder what canting history might apply to today.