Martian Calender - I have created a martian calender...

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-12-05 11:00:27

The Martian days of the Week
Solsday, Mercurday Venusday, Earthday, Marsday, Jovesday, Saturnday

SpaceNut · 2015-12-05 19:32:56

I think those names will do, next up is months and then holidays.....

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-12-14 15:55:19

Mars is the god of war.
Sparticus
Saladin
Wong Fei-Hung
Miyamoto Musashi
Gaius Julius Caesar
Hannibal Barca
Genghis Khan
Sun Tzu
Leonidas I
Alexander the Great

That's ten
http://www.toptenfamous.com/top-ten-famous-warriors/
Let me insert some of my picks
Napoleon Bonaparte
Robert E. Lee
George S. Patton

Terraformer · 2015-12-14 17:24:37

Simo Haya.
Audie Murphy.

louis · 2015-12-15 15:47:03

Given sol is the recognised term for a day on Mars, shouldn't we incorporate it in the day names? Some examples:-

Solares

Solmundi

Deimosol

Phobosol

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-12-19 09:56:58

louis wrote:

Given sol is the recognised term for a day on Mars, shouldn't we incorporate it in the day names? Some examples:-
Solares
Solmundi
Deimosol
Phobosol

Thing is one of our days of the week is named after our Sun which is also called Sol. So Sunsol would be the Martian equivalent to Sunday. Since Mars has two moons and Monday is named after our Moon, the next two days of the week would be Phobosol and Deimosol and this takes us to the middle of the week which is Wednesol, then you have Thursol, Frisol, and Saturnsol

IanM · 2015-12-22 00:00:57

I have a couple thoughts.

Since the Martian sol is only roughly half hour longer than an Earth day, it could be that the time of day of Mars would be identical to that on Earth, e.g., a valid time would be 18:07 or 6:07 p.m., as the case may be. This is important if, say, a colony wants to impose a curfew on its residents; no one under the age of 18 shall leave his or her house/room/domicile after 22:00/10:00 p.m. unless for legitimate business, for example. This is particularly easy for the earthling natives to be accustomed to, but that half-hour difference is artificial as Clark says, building up over time, to the point where it could be possible for it to be high noon during "midnight", and vice versa! The colonists could simply, as Rob has put, make minutes and seconds 1.22 times longer, but an issue with that is that the second is the SI unit of time, and redefining it would entail having to redefine, among other things, the speed of light and other SI and SI-derived units such as the Newton and even the meter, thus complicating science considerably. A redefinition of only the minute to be 1.22 times longer would still lead to a 73.2-second minute, which is not an integer, and a rounded-down 73 isn't nearly as easily divisible as 60. On the other hand, the colonists could indeed simply ignore the incongruity and artificiality, and use darkened blinds when the sun is shining (to the extent that it can given Mars's extra distance) at midnight, and artificial lights when it's almost pitch black at noon, but this might be a waste of resources, and especially of energy in the latter case. Which solution the colony chooses in practice will be interesting.

My curfew example above gives the age limit for a curfew of "18", which is meaningless without specifying 18 of what. Obviously on Earth it's implied 18 years, but on Mars that's itself meaningless without a specification of what is defined by a year. If we define it as 18 martian years, that would be the equivalent of a person being in his mid-30s on Earth still being subject to a law intended for teenagers! We could indeed simply reduce the age to 9 or around so, but that leads to the question of how to measure birthdays and whatnot.

Both the time problem and the date problem show there are two options, with both of their pitfalls; make a calendar based mostly on Martian cycles, or one based mostly on Earth cycles. A potential solution, if rather inelegant, is to use two calendars: one Anno Domini, or the Gregorian Calendar, exactly, and the other a calendar based on the Martian calendars, independent of the Anno Domini calendar.
The A.D. calendar would mostly be intended and used for administrative and legal purposes, as well as interfaces with Earth; such years would be marked in statute/law/etc. as "years of our Lord" or something of that effect, such as "the age of majority for this colony shall be eighteen years of our Lord." The Martian calendar, on the other hand, would be used as an Almanac sort of time, with actual relevant seasons that exist on the surface, rather than dates for legalese. These two purposes could eventually lead to some class differences, A.D. possibly being "city time" and the Martian calendar "country time", or the like, though ideally everyone in the colony would learn both. The advantage of this would be that the disadvantages of each respective calendar are balanced out by the advantages of the other, reducing if not outright eliminating the need for compromising either. The disadvantage would be that each colonist would need to learn two dates, each of systems that might not perfectly line up.

Terraformer · 2015-12-22 06:19:26

I think having an odd "witching hour" is probably the most elegant solution for what to do with the excess time in the Martian day.

IanM · 2015-12-22 11:40:06

Maybe either a leap hour or a leap day every so often.

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-12-25 18:58:11

Terraformer wrote:

I think having an odd "witching hour" is probably the most elegant solution for what to do with the excess time in the Martian day.

That would make it difficult to have time zones on Mars. On Earth, the time of day depends on where you are, you need equal divisions of the day to assign 1/24th of the circumference of Mars, a Martian hour. Practically speaking, I see no reason to rename the days of the week, that is just an exercise in hubris and self-importance. I think most future Martians will use the days, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, because that is what we are used to on Earth, and the Martian day is not that much different. Also most people living on Mars will probably use the terms "day" and "night", rather than "sol" for everyday use. The word "sol" would be use to specify whether a Martian day or an Earth day. The big difference would come with time periods greater than a week. I think a 12-month year would be appropriate with the names of the months corresponding to the seasons that we usually associate with those month names, that is "January" would be associated with Northern Martian winter, as we are used to January as a winter month.

SpaceNut · 2015-12-25 20:04:28

The martian day is only 39 minutes more but its the yearly period that is the issue.

http://www.universetoday.com/14718/how- … r-on-mars/

It lasts 686.98 Earth days or 1.88 Earth years.

marsseasons.jpg?fit=450%2C353&resize=350%2C200

The seasons would last about this long: Spring…7 months, Summer…6 months, Fall…5.3 months, and Winter…just over 4 months.

Tables of Seasonal Data for Mars
http://planetary.org/explore/space-topi … endar.html

So the question comes back to whether we are using a 12 month calendar or a much longer one that when set to earth is 22.3 approximate for the complete cycle....

louis · 2015-12-25 20:10:26

My view is:

Our circadian rythms can work with the Mars Sol time division - great (because they are not exactly 24 hours - there is a about half an hour leeway each side)!

We should divide the Mars Sol up into 24 Mars hours, then divided into 60 Mars minutes (and those Mars minutes divided into 60 Mars seconds). Scientists and other technicians working on Mars would (in the main) continue to use Earth seconds, minutes and hours for their calculations in conformity with their colleagues on Earth.

We should abandon the Earth concept of a month - as a lunar-related concept.

We need to relate to the Mars year - equivalent to something like 1.88 Earth years and the Mars seasons.

So I think loooking to four quarters of the Mars year is a good idea (related to the equatorial (?) solstices).

We have four quarters of 167 sols divided up into 16 Mars weeks (or "decasols") of 10 sols with the working pattern over three decasols being (with the remainder of 7 sols constituting a common festive period):

Sol 1 - Off

Sol 2 - On
Sol 3 - On
Sol 4 - On

Sol 5 - Off

Sol 6 - On
Sol 7 - On
Sol 8 - On

Sol 9 - Off
Sol 10 - Off
Sol 1 - Off

Sol 2 - On
Sol 3 - On
Sol 4 - On

Sol 5 - Off

Sol 6 - On
Sol 7 - On
Sol 8 - On

Sol 9 - Off
Sol 10 - Off
Sol 1 - Off

Sol 2 - On
Sol 3 - On
Sol 4 - On

Sol 5 - Off

Sol 6 - On
Sol 7 - On
Sol 8 - On

Sol 9 - Off
Sol 10 - Off

The decasols would be grouped into 4s. So each season would comprise four lots of four decasols concluded by a common festive period of 7 sols.

The four festive periods might have relevant themes: Exploration, Terraformation, Earth and Family.

IanM · 2015-12-25 21:32:14

I'm still suspicious of the redefinition of the second. I know it's been done before in simulations, and I know Louis insists that scientists, etc., would still use Earth seconds for SI purposes, but the second ultimately defines so many of the SI units for things not even directly related to time such as the meter, and thence the Newton and the Ampere, Ohm, and Volt, and so much more. The margin of error for seconds is roughly 2.08%, close to the Earth second but noticeably different at large quantities. The margin of error in most of the derived units, especially those not directly derived from the seconds, would likely be much smaller, but all the same nonzero, and thus noticeably different at a sufficiently large quantities. Ultimately, a new second would ultimately uproot the vast majority of the metric system as we know it. Especially in public consciousness, this would likely result in a dual system of Earth-based SI and Mars-based SI. That might be hypocritical of me to say, as I proposed a dual calendar, but it's still something to consider. Otherwise, I like Louis's idea.

SpaceNut · 2015-12-25 21:58:22

Just one of the reasons for why we will stay synchronous with regards to the values used to keep time for a daily period but after that we are up against what we use to define a work week which could be a 2 week period of days, a seasonal clock for how to determine the months for what is a martian calendar year.

RobertDyck · 2015-12-25 22:22:00

I agree, we cannot redefine the standard unit of time called "second". It is a fundamental of the SI system. Furthermore, there is no need to redefine minute or hour. One solar day on Mars (NASA JPL calls that a "Sol") is 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds. That's fine, no need to change that. So you get up to go to work at a certain time of day, and go to work. Just like on Earth. So you get to sleep in an extra 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds per day. Or use that time to enjoy yourself every evening. That's fine. So there is 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds after 12:00 midnight before the next day starts. Mars will probably use a 24-hour clock, so noon is 12:00 and one hour after that is 13:00. That means there is such a time as 24:39, up to 24:39:35.244 then the next day starts at 00:00.

When we do have a permanent settlement on Mars, we will probably have something on Luna (Earth's moon), mining operations on asteroids, and could have something on Mercury. I've said we will probably find deposits of gallium and indium on Mercury, metals to make high efficiency photovoltaic cells. With multiple worlds, you want standard definition of time. Solar day is the smallest granule you can effectively allow to be different.

As for calendar, there are several proposals. This discussion thread has several proposals. One Mars "year" is 686.971 Earth days, but only 668.5991 solar days. Find some creative way to divide that up. Forget American holidays, they aren't universal on Earth, and don't correspond to the Mars calendar. American Thanksgiving is based on previous European harvest festivals, but with foods introduced by natives of North America. Even Canadian Thanksgiving is a different day, it's in October due to earlier winter. Halloween is based on the pagan festival of Samhain, exactly half way between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. At one point the Christian church attempted to stamp it out, claiming that November 1st is "All Saints Day" and that the saints would banish all the ghosts for another year. So "All Hallows' Eve" was celebrated as the evening before "All Saints Day". Yule was the pagan festival of the winter solstice, and the pre-Christian Roman religion created a holiday to celebrate it on December 25. (Rome didn't get their calendar quite right, a medieval monk corrected it in Medieval times, named the new calendar for Pope Gregory XIII who declared it official.) When Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, he declared the December 25st holiday would celebrate the birth of Christ. Even though the Bible clearly states Jesus was born in March. Santa Claus was created in America in the 1800s based on Saint Nicholas, a 4th century bishop who gave food and warm winter clothing to the poor. I could go on, but the point is holidays are based on odd things through history. Mars will have its own history.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2015-12-27 12:59:02)

louis · 2015-12-26 20:46:24

RobertDyck wrote:

I agree, we cannot redefine the standard unit of time called "second". It is a fundamental of the SI system. Furthermore, there is no need to redefine minute or hour. One solar day on Mars (NASA JPL calls that a "Sol") is 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds.
In response to posting # 40

It is an interesting debate...I must say I am quite attracted to your proposals of the "vacant lot" of 39 plus minutes each sol. But of course once you have a complex economy that sort of "lacuna" in the sol will throw up all sorts of legal problems (about being paid by the hour and so on). So on balance I do prefer Mars minutes for Mars's natural time - and let scientists keep Earth minutes as SI.

Regarding the discussion of festive periods - my proposal of four festive periods dedicated to Exploration, Terraformation, Earth and Family are not in any way culturally specific and I think those are the sorts of festivals we need if we are starting a new civilisation on Mars.

No doubt recent arrivals on Mars may wish to continue celebrating the festivals of their ancestors but the Mars community should make every effort to ensure those celebrations are "drowned out" by a very strong Mars-based tradition that all Mars residents can take part in.

SpaceNut · 2015-12-26 22:18:31

Comparing the Mars sol time devided into just a 24 part ect... day value is the the same as using a metric value for time on earth 10 parts around the globe devided by 10 for what is the next.....
We can not make use of differing values for measurements as that is why we have faliures to land on Mars in the past...can you say conversion error......

Terraformer · 2015-12-27 07:57:19

Then why not redefine the minute, or the hour? There's no need to alter the second.

Though there's no reason why people couldn't be paid by the minute. Or, you know, by the normal hour, with their pay for the witching hour being whatever their hourly pay is times the length of the witching hour compared to the normal hour. It's really not difficult to work out, and it's a dumb reason to redefine the second.

IanM · 2015-12-27 12:57:43

I know that is a rhetorical question, but indeed, as I've said earlier, redefining solely the minute would result in a 73-second minute, a prime number that is therefore not nearly as easily divisible as 60. Redefining only the hour would similarly result in a 73-minute hour, with similar division problems.

That being said, getting paid by the hour indeed implies an equivalent per minutam wage. So, I think getting paid during the witching hour would, depending on the calendar, be getting paid for 65% of the normal hour.

Terraformer · 2015-12-27 16:59:04

I don't think having a minute that doesn't divide easily will be that much of a problem. I can only think of cooking where we divide minutes, and in that case we can simply give the fractional minute as seconds instead. So 1.5 minutes would become 1 minute 17 seconds.

Actually, I support redefining the minute now. It keeps the day divided into equal lengths, and leaves us with divisible hours, without messing around with a fundamental unit in a way that would cause confusion.

IanM · 2015-12-27 19:39:07

You forget that we also measure heart rate every 6 seconds in order to multiply by ten to get beats per minute.

Which leads to another thing, to play the devil's advocate, against redefining the minute, similar to why redefining the second is bad. Even though a minute is not an SI unit like the second, and therefore its redefinition wouldn't throw completely everything into cahoots, there are still several things defined by it. In addition to beats per minute, the rotational velocity of automotive engines is often measured in rotations per minute, or rpm. Such units would be confused between Earth and Mars.

That is the caveat on redefining any unit of time below that of the day. That's why I'm not enthusiastic of any such redefinitions. If we must redefine one of the three units (hours, minutes, or seconds), though, it should be the minute, as that has the least effect.

louis · 2015-12-27 20:25:03

I can't claim to be an expert in this area. I just suspect it will throw up all sorts of problems you haven't thought about. For instance, one that occurs to me is that here on Earth we can say "Oh yeah, New York is five hours behind London time" or whatever. But how does that work (on Mars)) when you have a 39 minute hiatus in the clock? I'm thinking that there will be variations during the day - so sometimes it will be whole hour differences and other times it will be hour plus minute differences for different longitudes on the Mars globe. But I must admit my limited numeracy means I quite envision how that works. However, it is clear it is far more complex than on Earth in such circumstances.

IanM wrote:

I know that is a rhetorical question, but indeed, as I've said earlier, redefining solely the minute would result in a 73-second minute, a prime number that is therefore not nearly as easily divisible as 60. Redefining only the hour would similarly result in a 73-minute hour, with similar division problems.
That being said, getting paid by the hour indeed implies an equivalent per minutam wage. So, I think getting paid during the witching hour would, depending on the calendar, be getting paid for 65% of the normal hour.

IanM · 2015-12-27 21:11:42

That is a very good point, Louis. I was thinking the witching hour would be the same throughout all time zones (i.e., it could be 22:60-22:99 in Elysium and 16:60-16:99 in Valles Marineris), but that is also complicated and potentially defeating the purpose of the hour.

louis · 2015-12-28 07:43:08

Of course, I hadn't thought of that - but, as you accept, that could cause its own difficulties e.g. when organising shifts for workers where you are trying to synchronise hours across time zones e.g. the VM worker's 1400-2200 shift would be longer than the EM worker's 1400-2200 hours shift. I imagine these issues become even more problematic when you have marsglobal computerised trading in commodities and currencies.

IanM wrote:

That is a very good point, Louis. I was thinking the witching hour would be the same throughout all time zones (i.e., it could be 22:60-22:99 in Elysium and 16:60-16:99 in Valles Marineris), but that is also complicated and potentially defeating the purpose of the hour.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-01-01 14:15:35

SpaceNut wrote:

The martian day is only 39 minutes more but its the yearly period that is the issue.
http://www.universetoday.com/14718/how- … r-on-mars/
It lasts 686.98 Earth days or 1.88 Earth years.
http://i1.wp.com/www.universetoday.com/ … =350%2C200
The seasons would last about this long: Spring…7 months, Summer…6 months, Fall…5.3 months, and Winter…just over 4 months.
Tables of Seasonal Data for Mars
http://planetary.org/explore/space-topi … endar.html
So the question comes back to whether we are using a 12 month calendar or a much longer one that when set to earth is 22.3 approximate for the complete cycle....

Well if we have a twelve month year, we don't need to come up with new names for the Martian Months, one could get the idea for example that July would be in Martian Summer and January would be in Martian winter, since Mars has an elliptical orbit, the months would not be equal in length. I think it would be better to measure the Martian seasons in Martian weeks of seven sols each, each named Sunday through Saturday. Some religious Martian colonists will want to go to Church on the Martian Sunday for instance. Lets take the year
Spring 7 months or 210 days, the traditional months of Spring would be April, May and June up to Summer Solstice. that would give you months of 70 days each, or each one 10 weeks long.
Summer is 6 months of 180 days, each month is 60 days long and would be July, August, and September up to Autumnal Equinox, each month would be 8.5 weeks long, Autumn is 5.3 months or 159 days and would be the months of October, November, and December up to Winter Solstice. Each Month would be 53 days long or 7.5 weeks. Winter would be 4 months long or 120 days, and would include the months of January, February, and March, each month would be 40 days long or 5.71 weeks.

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