How could 11 minutes make a difference

[DaveChase]

What is being off timing by 11 minutes could make a difference.

Well 11 minutes late in the current now could mean a lot, like missing the bus, bank doors closing and you miss a deposit deadline, etc.
But what is 11 minutes out of a year, or more particular 4 years?

Well after reading the article posted below, it got me thinking of Traveller and the passage of time in eons. Let alone timing issues due to every planet in the universe having a different length of day and year cycle versus ship board time, home world time and Imperial Standard time (dates) but more particular eons of time passing.

( I have been in a Time Traveler mind set of the last few weeks, watching movies and reading stories about time travel and 11 minutes could make a big difference there too.)

So, lets say it has been 4 eons since X incident happened and we have a mistake of figuring time off of 11 minutes per 4 years. That means we are off 11,000 minutes (or 183.3333 hours or 7.6388 days or just over 1 week)

Not really sure what all this could mean to you or YTU, but it does make me think of various story line situation were it could make a big difference to time travelers, calculating known location of lost ship along X trajectory over eons (centuries) or attempting to line up know physical (planetary) objects correctly over 100's of lightyears distances.


(They changed my meds again and I must say, the pain control is better but some of the off tangent thoughts/day dreams that I have are interesting of late)


Please do not make this a political issue. I only posted the article below as reference for my post because the issue of time got me thinking. Not what example they used just that it got me thinking.

Even in itself, a weird issue of what date certain world holidays should be celebrated on would make some typical SciFi dilemma episode of drama for TV.

Dave Chase

Why Hanukkah and Thanksgiving Will Never Again Coincide

This month, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving will overlap for a joint celebration that will never happen again. Here's why. (Try to keep up with me on this.)

Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday in November. Hanukkah is the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev.

The 4th Thursday in November can range from the 22nd to the 28th. If the 29th is a Thursday, then so is the 1st, so the 29th would be the fifth Thursday, not the fourth. And if the 21st is a Thursday, then it's only the third Thursday. On average, then, Thanksgiving falls on the 28th about every seven years. It will fall on the 28th this year, then again in 2019, 2024, 2030, and 2041, or four times in the next 28 years. (It's not exactly every seven years because leap days throw things off a little.)

The Jewish month of Kislev can currently start as early as November 3 or as late as December 2, which means that the first day of Hanukkah can come as early as November 28 or as late as December 27.

The reason for the broad range of possible dates is that the Jewish calendar is lunar-solar. The months are based on the cycles of the moon. But the calendar changes the lengths of those months, and even how many months are in a year, to make sure that Passover always falls in the spring. This complex system — put in place by Rav Shmuel in the first half of the first millennium CE — ensures that the Jewish date and the secular date match up every 19 years. (By contrast, the Muslim calendar is purely lunar, which is why Ramadan can fall during any time of the solar year. The Christian religious calendar is almost entirely solar, but Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox [around March 21], a calculation that involves the moon as well as the sun.)

Because of this Jewish 19-year cycle, 19 years from now, in the year 2032, Hanukkah will again fall on November 28. But Thanksgiving in that year falls three days earlier, on the 25th.

On average, we would expect the 19-year Jewish cycle and the 7-year Thanksgiving-on-November-28 cycle to coincide about every 19x7 years, which is to say, approximately every 133 years. And they sort of do.

One-hundred and fifty-two years ago, in 1861, the first day of Hanukkah and the 4th Thursday in November were both on November 28th. But there was no Thanksgiving back then.

In 152 years from now, in 2165, Thanksgiving falls on the 28th, and you'd expect Hanukkah also to fall on the 28th, but it doesn't.

If you you've been paying attention (and if you haven't given up yet), you may have noticed that I said "currently" when I explained when Kislev can begin. Remember Shmuel, who fixed the details of our current Jewish calendar in the first place? He, like everyone else back then, though that the year was 365.25 days long. This is why we have a usual year of 365 days, but every 4th year we add a leap day in February to make 366.

But Shmuel — again, like everyone else — was off by a little more than 11 minutes. The year is not quite 365.25 days long, but, rather, closer to only 365.2425 days, or about 11 minutes shorter than 365.25 days. For a long time no one noticed those 11 minutes. For a longer time no one cared. But by the time of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, those 11 minutes per year — or about 3 days per 400 years — had added up to about ten days.

This meant that March 21, which had once been the approximate date of the spring equinox, was now 10 days later than the spring equinox. Or, conversely, the spring equinox fell on March 11. This was a problem for the Church, because the springtime holiday of Easter was shifting further and further away from spring.

Pope Gregory fixed the problem in two ways. First, he lopped off 10 days from the calendar. For Catholics, the day after Thursday, October 4, 1582 was Friday, October 15, 1582. Secondly, he eliminated 3 leap days every four hundred years. He decreed that years divisible by 4 would still be leap years, unless they were also divisible by 100 but not by 400. So 1600 would be a leap year (divisible by 100 and by 400), but 1700 would not (divisible by 100 and not by 400). This became known as the Gregorian calendar, and it gradually spread through the Christian world.

In 1752, the British empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, making the day after Wednesday, September 2, 1752 not the 3rd but rather the 14th. (An 11th day was necessary because 1700 was not a leap year in the Gregorian calendar.)

The Jews, of course, didn't give a damn what Pope Gregory said. They kept using the Shmuelian calendar for their calculations. The Shmuelian calendar and the Gregorian calendar have been diverging at the rate of about 11 minutes a year, or 3 days every 400 years. Furthermore, the year 2100 will be a leap year in the Shmuelian calendar (because it's divisible by 4) but not in the Gregorian calendar (because it's divisible by 100 but not 400). So not long after the year 2100, the Jewish calendar and the secular calendar will diverge by an additional 1 day — though the details are even a little more nuanced, because Shmuel used a simplification of the final Jewish calendar.

This is why (remember the question from several paragraphs ago?) in the year 2165, when we'd expect Thanksgiving and Hanukkah to coincide again, Hanukkah will actually be one day later.

And that is why Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will never again coincide.

Well, almost never. If the Jews don't ever abandon the calculations based on the Shmuelian calendar, Hanukkah will keep getting later and later — moving through winter, then into spring, summer, and finally back into fall — so that tens of thousands of years from now they will again coincide. But long before then the springtime holiday of Passover will have moved deep into summer, so be on the lookout for a memo with a calendar update in the next several thousand years.

And in the meantime, don't miss this opportunity to enjoy an exceedingly rare confluence of celebrations.

Happy Hanukkah. And Happy Thanksgiving.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Sifu strolls by...

Well after reading the article posted below, it got me thinking of Traveller and the passage of time in eons. Let alone timing issues due to every planet in the universe having a different length of day and year cycle versus ship board time, home world time and Imperial Standard time (dates) but more particular eons of time passing.

Even in itself, a weird issue of what date certain world holidays should be celebrated on would make some typical SciFi dilemma episode of drama for TV.

What a coincidence that you would bring up this subject. Have a seat, there is something i need to tell you...
from novel TERRAN EXODUS, story HEAD ON COLLISION


You could go to one of an almost limitless number of 'bubble colonies' to spread your unique interpretation of culture. Depending on the amount of effort expended, one can access primary, secondary, tertiary and other lesser realms of probability. Feel particularly daring? Try projecting into a dimension of almost zero probability. It can be done! Any option desired was available, somewherewhen.

In any group setting, the majority generally got what they wanted. Still, there was no need to trample on the rights of a minority. Attempts were made to mold reality locally to the liking of everyone. Do not like the viewpoint of those around you? Take some friends if you like, transfer to another reality and mold it to your liking. No one will stop you.

Groups large, small and the occasional individual took advantage of unrestrained and almost unlimited opportunity and did just that. There is one particular group that we will focus on at this time.

They came from a reality code block that was very similar to that of the home dimension. Here, unlimited connectivity and data access led to a situation that did not exist in the home dimension, a worldwide gestalt composed of organic and electronic intelligences, ultimately enabled by a symbiotic silicon virus, without invasive surgery.

Enjoying the advantages of such a society, they still chafed under conditions that they considered less than ideal. They wanted to be alone. To think, plan, experiment.

Renewal and Exploration Day was what everyone everywherewhen called the first day of the year, as measured at home. Not just a home colony, the original homeworld itself. This was the day, chosen by the Triad, that Colonial Administration would use to make announcements about new dimensional availability.

No matter what the local calendar said, wherewhenever those three triangles of the Triad appeared on any public transdimensonal receiver, regardless of their configuration, the next two local days became a holiday, starting immediately!

 

[JimMarn]

For combat, and other world events, things can change one way or another, based on who arrived, or didn't show up, for battles or events like a wildfire or flash flood.

 

[BlackBat242]

11 minutes later and the fighters & dive bombers from USS Enterprise & USS Hornet miss the Japanese destroyer that was headed north towards the Japanese carriers... and the Japanese find the US carriers and sink all 3 of them without the US getting more than 1 or 2 of the 4 Japanese carriers.

Japan wins the Battle of Midway, and the US can't invade Guadalcanal before the Japanese get their airfield operational and equipped... and so on.

 

[aramis]

11 minutes later, and Lee Harvey Oswald misses his window to shoot Pres. Kennedy.

11 minutes later and Jack Ruby can't shoot Oswald.

 

[Enoff]

Marengo June 14, 1800

Général de Division Louis Desaix is killed 11 minutes too early to lead his corps onto the battlefield causing Napoleon to lose the battle to the Austrian General Melas. Napoleon and much of his army is captured, he fades into obscurity and the Bourbon monarchy is soon restored in France.