Holidays

RobertDyck · 2018-12-15 18:42:08

Many modern North American holidays are actually quite recent. And many concocted. Valentines Day is concocted to sell more flowers and candy. Halloween is based on Samhain, but has become training to become door-to-door salesmen. Do we still have door-to-door sales any more? So do we want to perpetuate extreme commercialism, or start over?

Ps. This video says "no one really knows when Jesus was born". If you read the Bible, description matches some time in spring. December 25 was chosen because ancient Romans thought that was the winter solstice. The Julian calendar needed some work.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-12-17 05:05:17)

SpaceNut · 2018-12-15 19:05:44

Or you could see it this way from the eyes of

When Charlie Brown complains about the overwhelming materialism that he sees amongst everyone during the Christmas season, Lucy suggests that he become director of the school Christmas paegent. Charlie Brown accepts, but it proves to be a frustrating struggle.

RobertDyck · 2018-12-15 21:07:13

How Samhain became Halloween...

SpaceNut · 2018-12-15 21:33:44

Easter is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, but the seasonal chocolate eggs and the bunny who delivers them are nowhere to be found in scripture. Easter is a religious holiday, but some of its customs, such as Easter eggs, are likely linked to pagan traditions. In legend, the Easter bunny, also called the Easter hare and the spring bunny, brings baskets filled with colored eggs, candy, and sometimes toys to the homes of children on the night before Easter, in much the same way as Santa Claus is said to deliver presents on Christmas Eve.

th?id=OIP.njxTQtp3zfHHP0_i_WqMogHaFZ&w=92&h=67&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&pid=3.1&rm=2

No video this time...

RobertDyck · 2018-12-16 05:32:23

Ukrainian decorated eggs are called Pysanka. The Slavic tradition of decorating eggs dates back before Christianity. But I don't know where the Bunny came from.

Easter is one holiday that bugs me. Here in Canada, government workers get a 4 day weekend. They get off both Good Friday and the Monday following Easter. They call it "Easter Monday", but I point out there is no such thing as "Easter Monday". Ok, Eastern Orthodox Church has a holiday for "Easter Monday", but it's not either Protestant nor Catholic. If you're going to make every holiday for every religion on the planet an official day off work, then every day on the calendar is a holiday. Most importantly, no one other than government workers gets this day off work. It's not a statutory holiday. Anyone other than government workers do not get a 4 day weekend ever, so why should government workers? The civil service made it part of their union contract. I feel that holiday should be taken away; for everyone else it's just another Monday, so government workers should be required to work too.

JoshNH4H · 2018-12-17 14:11:07

It's easy to imagine that, at first, Martian settlers will settle the holidays of whichever nation they come from. Over time though it's easy to imagine that they'll come to celebrate their own unique holidays, or combine the holidays of various nations into something uniquely Martian. Likewise it's easy to imagine that Martians will use dual calendars: The Gregorian Calendar and a Martian Calendar (structure tbd). Terran holidays will presumably be celebrated according to their Gregorian dates, while Martian holidays are more likely to be celebrated on the Martian calendar. Religious holidays (if religion persists) will presumably be celebrated according to the calendar of the respective religion, for example if there is a group of practicing jews on Mars they will celebrate Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishrei.

Here's a few that come to mind:

Founder's Day: A day to celebrate the founding of whatever settlement people live in. This would be a good day to do ceremonial openings of new habitats and facilities, groundbreakings, etc.

Winter Solstice: Most places on Earth have some sort of Winter Solstice holiday, which makes a lot of sense because that's when the days finally start to get longer.

Summer Solstice: Most places on Earth also celebrate the abundant sunlight of summer solstice. It's easy to imagine this also being the case on Mars.

Thanksgiving/Harvest Festival: While Mars is unlikely to have the same sorts of defined harvest as Earth, seeing as 100% of the farming will be done indoors, there will be an analogous event which is the arrival of cargo from Earth. This will occur 6-9 months after the launch window, every 26 months. This is a great time to celebrate the arrival of new immigrants and needed cargo.

Landing Day: Celebration of the first footsteps of people on Mars.

Those are the ones that come to mind now, what do you all think?

louis · 2018-12-17 15:13:35

Yes, I think those are some good choices for festivals on Mars that can bring together people from different cultural traditions.

I think there could be some others:

Sol Viking - Commemorating the first controlled landing of a probe on Mars.

Sol Republic - Commemorating the foundation of the Mars Republic.

Terraformation Sol - Celebrating the efforts being made to terraform Mars into a planet that is truly a second home for humanity. Once Terraformation is achieved, it will be a sol to commemorate with thanks those efforts.

Explorers Sol - Celebrating the exploration of Mars, in particular the most notable explorations.

Children's Sol - Celebrating the birth of the first child on Mars and the importance of children to the growth of the Mars settlement.

With 668 sols in the Martian Year, there's lots of room for festival sols.

JoshNH4H wrote:

It's easy to imagine that, at first, Martian settlers will settle the holidays of whichever nation they come from. Over time though it's easy to imagine that they'll come to celebrate their own unique holidays, or combine the holidays of various nations into something uniquely Martian. Likewise it's easy to imagine that Martians will use dual calendars: The Gregorian Calendar and a Martian Calendar (structure tbd). Terran holidays will presumably be celebrated according to their Gregorian dates, while Martian holidays are more likely to be celebrated on the Martian calendar. Religious holidays (if religion persists) will presumably be celebrated according to the calendar of the respective religion, for example if there is a group of practicing jews on Mars they will celebrate Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishrei.
Here's a few that come to mind:
Founder's Day: A day to celebrate the founding of whatever settlement people live in. This would be a good day to do ceremonial openings of new habitats and facilities, groundbreakings, etc.
Winter Solstice: Most places on Earth have some sort of Winter Solstice holiday, which makes a lot of sense because that's when the days finally start to get longer.
Summer Solstice: Most places on Earth also celebrate the abundant sunlight of summer solstice. It's easy to imagine this also being the case on Mars.
Thanksgiving/Harvest Festival: While Mars is unlikely to have the same sorts of defined harvest as Earth, seeing as 100% of the farming will be done indoors, there will be an analogous event which is the arrival of cargo from Earth. This will occur 6-9 months after the launch window, every 26 months. This is a great time to celebrate the arrival of new immigrants and needed cargo.
Landing Day: Celebration of the first footsteps of people on Mars.
Those are the ones that come to mind now, what do you all think?

SpaceNut · 2018-12-17 18:40:19

Spring would celebrate the life to soon spring for with planting of crops that need more light to grow.

2 yr 7 weeks for a mars year of 720 days.
111 weeks with 7 day weeks.

I am not sure that summer for earth aligns with when summer occurs for mars for synchronizing the 2 calendars.

RobertDyck · 2018-12-17 22:15:16

SpaceNut wrote:

I am not sure that summer for earth aligns with when summer occurs for mars for synchronizing the 2 calendars.

One Mars year is 686.971 Earth days, or 668.5991 sols. One Earth year is 365.256363004 days. Or one Mars year is 1.88082 Earth years. Actually that's orbital periods; Earth's orbital period is 1.00001742096 years. I think difference between orbital period and "year" has to do with rotation of Earth so that the Sun appears in the same point of the sky. That adjustment makes one Earth year 365.249999998 days. Anyway, ratio of planetary years is so odd that seasons will not line up at all.

SpaceNut · 2018-12-18 19:59:06

Its an odd shaped orbit in that its not centered from respect to the sun for any of its alignments.

Thanks for being more percise as its important to get the facts correct...

SpaceNut · 2018-12-25 11:33:58

Merry Christmas to all on NewMars and Happy New Year

knightdepaix · 2018-12-25 14:18:30

Transits holidays:
Transits of Deimos, once each Martian year
Transits of Mercury, Venus, Earth from Mars.

SpaceNut · 2018-12-25 14:31:02

How about planetary date of discovery for special holidays as well to be marked on a Mars calendar.

clark · 2018-12-29 01:42:33

There are four holidays/dates of observation that transcend all the other suggestions. The Sun and Earth rule all foreseeable futures.

Mars perihelion
Mars aphelion
Mars/Earth Opposition
Mars/Earth Conjunction

JoshNH4H · 2018-12-29 07:32:43

I feel like aphelion and perihelion seen important but won't have that much of an effect of people on planet. We don't celebrate them on Earth after all.

IanM · 2018-12-29 17:57:15

I feel the solstices and equinoxes are also natural choices for holidays, as they are on Earth.

RobertDyck · 2018-12-29 23:32:56

On Earth, winter solstice marks the middle of winter. That's the shortest day and longest night; it's cold, plants are dormant, crops don't grow. Summer solstice marks the middle of summer (not "start" as the media often says). That's the longest day and shortest night, it's warm. Harvest is an important date, but harvest depends on latitude. For example, Canadian Thanksgiving is the 2nd Monday of October, in the US it's the 4th Thursday of November. I live in Winnipeg, roughly 100km (62 miles) north of North Dakota. We usually say 60 miles, it depends which point in the city you measure from. Here the first snow that stays used to arrive in the beginning of November; you could have snow in the end of October but it would melt. The last couple years the first snow appears a couple weeks later, middle to end of November. So the date of American thanksgiving doesn't make sense here, crops would be frost damaged. But how will this relate to Mars?

Mars does have seasons. It is colder in winter, but it's pretty cold in Mars summer too. Summer nights can get down to -77°C, occasionally -80°C. Mars winter nights can get colder than -100°C. Viking 2 lander in the late 1970s recorded temperature for more than a Mars year; the coldest temperature it recorded was -102°C. But Curiosity rover has already recorded night temperatures colder than that. Different latitude. Will seasons really impact settlers on Mars? You really don't want to be outside in a spacesuit when the Sun sets, regardless of season. Cold that deep is deadly.

Conjunction with Earth may be more important, because it means spacecraft arrival & departure. Passengers and cargo.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-12-30 13:22:27)

tahanson43206 · 2018-12-30 12:01:11

However Martians decide to mark the New Year, it seems likely to me they will have built up a store of energy to release, after a long, plodding trip around the Sun!

For everyone who notes the Terran New Year custom, best wishes for the Day, and for the year ahead.

Update 2022/04/13 - The Business Calendar for Mars is defined by a uniform month of 28 days.

Standard Month in Mars Business Calendar
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
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

SearchTerm:Month standard for Mars Business Calendar
SearchTerm:Standard month for Mars Business Calendar
SearchTerm:Month generic for Mars Business Calendar
SearchTerm:Generic month layout for Mars Business Calendar

Update 2023/03/19 ... The relationship between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexender the Great became muddled in my mind.

I asked Google to correct errors in my memory, and it came back with details I will summarize here ...

Socrates was a philospher in Greece (Athens) who spoke effectively to many citizens of the time, but he (apparently) wrote nothing

Plato was a student/associate of Socrates. Everything we know (or think we know) about Socrates came from Plato

Aristitole was a student of Plato, and Aristotle wrote books ... the number may be as many as 10

Alexender the Great was the son of Phillip II of Macedon. Phillip hired Aristotle to tutor Alexander and apparently other royal pages of the time.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2018-12-31 10:43:33

JoshNH4H wrote:

It's easy to imagine that, at first, Martian settlers will settle the holidays of whichever nation they come from. Over time though it's easy to imagine that they'll come to celebrate their own unique holidays, or combine the holidays of various nations into something uniquely Martian. Likewise it's easy to imagine that Martians will use dual calendars: The Gregorian Calendar and a Martian Calendar (structure tbd). Terran holidays will presumably be celebrated according to their Gregorian dates, while Martian holidays are more likely to be celebrated on the Martian calendar. Religious holidays (if religion persists) will presumably be celebrated according to the calendar of the respective religion, for example if there is a group of practicing jews on Mars they will celebrate Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishrei.

The arrival of the last day of the Gregorian year on Earth inspired me to review some of the Wikipedia collection on calendars and the history of changes to make them more accurate compared to astronomical observations.

SearchTerm:ProposedMarsCalendar

Assuming that the convention of 7 days (sols) for a work week makes sense to those who settle on Mars ...

And assuming the convention of a Terran Lunar cycle (of 28 days (sols)) will continue to have biological significance ...

Begin Quotation from Google lookup per reminder from RobertDyck:
Mars' Calendar | The Planetary Society
www.planetary.org › Explore › Space Topics › Mars
Sols, or Martian solar days, are only 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than Earth days, and there are 668 sols (687 Earth days) in a Martian year. For convenience, sols are divided into a 24-hour clock.
End Quotation.

And using the Martian year of 668 sols (plus change) as a basis, here is a suggestion for a set of 24 months, each of which needs a name:
(Corrected from Earth Days per RobertDyke)

Begin Quotation from Calc:
668/24 >> 27.833 (ie, 648 plus difference of 20)
End

A Martian year has 668 sols

668 / 24 >> 27 and 20/24

1 A 28 Winter Name: Candidates: Aquarius, Aries, Asimov
2 B 28    Name: Candidates: Bradbury and Burroughs; Barsoom (created by Burroughs)
3 C 28    Name: Candidates: Cancer, Capricorn
4 D 28    Name:
5 E 28    Name:
6 F 27 Quarter Name:
7 G 28 Spring Name: Candidate: Gemini
8 H 28    Name:
9 I 28    Name:
10 J 28    Name:
11 K 28    Name:
12 L 27 Quarter Name: Candidates: Lowell, Leo, Libra
13 M 28 Fall Name:
14 N 28    Name:
15 O 28    Name:
16 P 28    Name: Candidate: Pisces
17 R 28    Name:
18 S 27 Quarter Name: Candidates: Sagittarius, Scorpio
19 T 28 Winter Name: Candidate: Taurus
20 U 28    Name:
21 V 28    Name: Candidate: Virgo
22 W 28    Name: Candidates: Wisdom, Wallaby
23 Y 28    Name: Candidate: Yak
24 Z 27 Quarter Name: Candidate: Zubrin

668 sols

Note that to allow for Z to display in a set of 24 months, I removed Q and X as least likely to be chosen as month names.

In the Gregorian calendar, first letters repeat, so that could certainly happen in the case of a Mars calendar.

Edit of 2019/01/07
Revised 2019/01/07 to show 28 day months with 27 day quarter endings

Legend: Mo is the Martian month
## is the number of days in the month
M12 is the Terran convention of 12 months per year
Sols is the cumulative count of days per Martian year
Qtry is the cumulative count of days per Martian quarter

Mo ## M12 Sols Qtr
1 28 Sols 1 28 28
2 28 Sols 1 56 56
3 28 Sols 2 84 84
4 28 Sols 2 112 112
5 28 Sols 3 140 140
6 27 Sols 3 167 167 End of Quarter subtract one day
7 28 Sols 4 195 28
8 28 Sols 4 223 56
9 28 Sols 5 251 84
10 28 Sols 5 279 112
11 28 Sols 6 307 140
12 27 Sols 6 334 167 End of Quarter subtract one day
13 28 Sols 7 362 28
14 28 Sols 7 390 56
15 28 Sols 8 418 84
16 28 Sols 8 446 112
17 28 Sols 9 474 140
18 27 Sols 9 501 167 End of Quarter subtract one day
19 28 Sols 10 529 28
20 28 Sols 10 557 56
21 28 Sols 11 585 84
22 28 Sols 11 613 112
23 28 Sols 12 641 140
24 27 Sols 12 668 167 End of Quarter End of Year
668 Sols 668 Sols

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-03-24 11:03:37)

RobertDyck · 2018-12-31 12:24:21

A Martian calendar would be based on 668 sols.

Earth has several natural cycles that all time keeping is based on. One orbit around the Sun, measured from high noon (Sun at its zenith) to high noon at the end of the orbit. That's one solar year, which is subtly different than a siderial year. One rotation of our planet, measured from high noon (Sun at its zenith) to high noon the next day. That's one solar day, which again is subtly different than a siderial day. The third major cycle is one orbit of Earth's major natural satellite, known as the Moon, or the ancient Latin name Luna. One orbit of the Moon is 27d 7h 43m 11.5s. However, due to the fact the Earth orbits the Sun, for the Moon to appear at the same point in they sky is called the synodic period. The Moon's synodic period is 29d 12h 44m 2.9s. That's roughly 29.5 days, but I gave it to a 1/10th of a second.

What about Mars? Mars has a solar year of 668.5991 solar days (sols). One sol is 24h 39m 35.244147s. The Moons of Mars are so small that from Mars they appear as bright stars moving quickly enough that you can watch them. Deimos orbital period is 30.312 hours. Since Mars rotates, it's moonrise period is 131 hours (5 sols, 8 hours). It's rotation is synchronous so the same side always faces Mars, like Luna does with Earth. Phobos orbits every 7.66 hours, it's moonrise period is 11.12 hours. Phobos rotation is also synchronous. So there's nothing inherent on Mars to define a "month".

One week was 7 days since ancient Rome. However, people worked 6 days per week, Hebrew tradition prohibited people from working on the Sabbath. Under Hebrew tradition the Sabbath was the 7th day of the week, aligning with the days of creation in the bible. People were expected to go to temple, not work. When Christianity started, the Sabbath was Sunday, just to be different than Hebrew. 7th Day Adventists observe the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. In Medieval Europe, because they were primarily Christian but had a significant Jewish population, and particularly bankers were usually Jew, they couldn't do any shopping or retail commerce on Saturday, so it became simply practical to not work both Sabbath days. That became the weekend.

So do we continue this on Mars?

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-12-31 12:41:43)

tahanson43206 · 2018-12-31 12:34:40

RobertDyck wrote:

A Martian calendar would be based on 668 sols.

Thanks for this correction!

It allows for the end of the fourth quarter to be a month with 29 days.

I'll adjust the initial post.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2018-12-31 13:35:04

There is a proposal for a new calendar for Earth: International Fixed Calendar (aka Cotsworth plan, Eastman plan, 13 Month calendar or Equal Month calendar)

This has 13 months, each with 28 days. That means each month always starts on the same day of the week, exactly 4 weeks per month. This works out to 364 days, so 1 additional day each year that is not part of any month nor any week. Leap years would have 2 such days. So after Saturday on the last day of the last month of the year, there is "Leap Day". With "Leap Day" between Saturday and Sunday, that means a 3 day weekend for New Years. On Leap Years there would be 2 Leap Days, so the year end weekend would be 4 days. You could call Leap Day the 29th of the last month, and on Leap Years there would be a 30th day of the last month. But these days would not be part of any 7-day week.

So for your Mars calendar, why 29 sols per month? Is there a way to adjust it for 28-sol months?

tahanson43206 · 2018-12-31 14:10:08

For RobertDyck,

I started with 28 days, divided that into (now 688) and got 16 days difference.

Because the existing Gregorian model alternates 30 and 31 day months (with exceptions of course), I tried that and had 4 days left over.

Thanks to your correction of my original attempt, those four days distribute nicely over the quarters, giving a grand total of 688 days, with expectation of occasional adjustment days added on an annual basis.

This model would have the advantage of symmetry, if adopted.

That said, this topic may inspire others to offer alternative patterns that might well be superior in ways I haven't thought of.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2018-12-31 14:32:26

668, not 688

tahanson43206 · 2018-12-31 19:56:32

Thanks for the reminder to compute with sols, not with Earth days.

The original post has been updated to show 20 months of 28 days and 4 months of 27 days.

Symmetry is preserved.

(th)

RobertDyck wrote:

668, not 688

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#1 2018-12-15 18:42:08

Holidays

#2 2018-12-15 19:05:44

Re: Holidays

#3 2018-12-15 21:07:13

Re: Holidays

#4 2018-12-15 21:33:44

Re: Holidays

#5 2018-12-16 05:32:23

Re: Holidays

#6 2018-12-17 14:11:07

Re: Holidays

#7 2018-12-17 15:13:35

Re: Holidays

#8 2018-12-17 18:40:19

Re: Holidays

#9 2018-12-17 22:15:16

Re: Holidays

#10 2018-12-18 19:59:06

Re: Holidays

#11 2018-12-25 11:33:58

Re: Holidays

#12 2018-12-25 14:18:30

Re: Holidays

#13 2018-12-25 14:31:02

Re: Holidays

#14 2018-12-29 01:42:33

Re: Holidays

#15 2018-12-29 07:32:43

Re: Holidays

#16 2018-12-29 17:57:15

Re: Holidays

#17 2018-12-29 23:32:56

Re: Holidays

#18 2018-12-30 12:01:11

Re: Holidays

#19 2018-12-31 10:43:33

Re: Holidays

#20 2018-12-31 12:24:21

Re: Holidays

#21 2018-12-31 12:34:40

Re: Holidays

#22 2018-12-31 13:35:04

Re: Holidays

#23 2018-12-31 14:10:08

Re: Holidays

#24 2018-12-31 14:32:26

Re: Holidays

#25 2018-12-31 19:56:32

Re: Holidays

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