Calculating the Date of Easter

The God Plays Dice blog has an entertaining post on how the date of Easter is calculated. Wikipedia has all the messy details of course, but the blog makes a good introduction to the topic. "Easter is the date of the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21... [T]he cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend[s] only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the [p]air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000 [years]."

Comments

Metric School Terms

[26199]

In the UK the academic year is split according to the date of Easter. I recall hearing about an effort to move to a "metric" system which doesn't depend on Easter. This suddenly makes a lot of sense...

Re:Metric School Terms

[26199]

Ah! The march of progress. Hasn't happened in the north-west yet, to my knowledge...

Re:Metric School Terms

[Foobar of Borg]

Yeah, those of us above school age also get a statutory 28 days paid holiday. Which seems a lot compared to the US 11 or 12(?)

I think 11 or 12 days is about what Americans in the professional class wind up getting on average, but *statutorily* we get somewhere between jack and shit.

To take it to the extreme the French are forced to work at most on 35 hours and get four weeks but have to take them in August.

So basically, if you want to invade France make sure to do it in August. That way, they won't notice until they come back from vacation :-).

Re:Metric School Terms

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, if you want to invade France make sure to do it in August. That way, they won't notice until they come back from vacation :-).

Not that this will have any effect on the outcome of invading ...

Re:Metric School Terms

[CmdrSammo]

(This is probably because we don't have any summer.)

There, fixed that for you. To prove this point we have just had a white Easter up here in Leeds, gotta love British weather, always keeps you on your toes! (or on your arse if attempting to keep on your toes this morning!)

Re:Metric School Terms

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a use French mi,military riffle for sale cheap. It was dropped once but has never been fired.

Re:how is it...

[Otter]

Calculating the Date of Easter Finds Possible Cure For Cancer

There, now it's an official Science article.

Re:how is it...

[CRCulver]

Arguably it is a math article to the interested christians on /.

Methinks many families that profess no especial religion nonetheless buy their children bunny figures, chocolate, and disgusting gelatin chicks in the springtime. These sort of articles, besides showing Christians when their religious day falls, also explain when to expect such mechandise in your local stores.

Re:how is it...

[ParaShoot]

These sort of articles, besides showing Christians when their religious day falls, also explain when to expect such mechandise in your local stores. At the rate the appearance of the merchandise moves further and further back from the official date each year, I wouldn't be surprised if the said gelatin chicks turn up sometime this July. Buy now for Easter '09!

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

WHAT?

Re:how is it...

[popmaker]

Yep, it goes along with the article on how to find out which weekday "seven days before yesterday" is without using your fingers.

Re:Why would

[CSMatt]

In his defense, the picture tagged with the story is pi.

Only this year.

[raehl]

Ah! The March of progress.

Next year it will be April again though.

Re:Why would

[flyingfsck]

I don't care about the myths - the chocolate bunnies and eggs are good enough for me.

Save the earth! It is the *only* planet with chocolate!

Stupid *nix Tricks

[Relic of the Future]

cal 9 1752

Calendars are funny things.

Re:It's not even accurate ...

[cheater512]

I'm actually worried that in 500 years or so, FSM will be the dominant religion. :)

The Golden Ratio Egg

[bubezleeb]

Of course, when these calculations consider the addition of the Easter Bunny, the Fibonacci sequence, represented as an infinite mathematical set, must be applied to the cycle result. In the end you'll find it's bunnies all the way down.

Re:Annual celebrations are arbitrary anyway.

[mrcaseyj]

I was born on a Thursday, so I want my family and friends to throw me a birthday party every Thursday. And yes, I expect plenty of presents :)

Re:It's not even accurate ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But communion will be delicious.

Re:Jewish, not Pagan, and especially not Druid

[Jesus_666]

except maybe some atheists who'll say that the Germanic fertility goddess folks ripped that off from nature, which provided the bunnies and eggs, or from the chemical industry who brought us marshmallow peeps.

Actually, nature ripped off the chemical industry and was in turn ripped off by the pagans. The chemical industry then sued the pagans, forcing them to settle for a ruinous amount of money. Paganism folded (back then chapter 11 wasn't yet written; they were only at chapter 4 at the time), which is why there aren't any pagan churches around anymore.

Nature never was sued. There are rumors of a secret licensig deal; on the other hand polution wasn't really an issue before the whole mess started...

Re:Birth and death

[Dunbal]

I mean, they make up so much other nonsense and claim it as hard fact, so why not this as well?

      To me Easter represents the day that the Flying Spaghetti Monster lost a meatball to the Giant Chocolate Rabbit. But fortunately he has plenty more. Oh, and yes I had pasta today to commemorate this fact. RAmen.