New Year is Coming !! Get Ready for 4702!

Has it been that long??

February 9th, 2005, is the first day of the year 4702 by the Chinese calendar. This year is known as the Year of the Rooster.

The Chinese calendar is based on a lunar calendar in which the first day of the new year falls on the first day after the 2nd new moon after the winter solstice. Since today is the date of the 2nd new moon after the winter solstice, then tomorrow is the first day of the new Chinese year!

Although the date of the Chinese New Year appears to be variable relative to the modern Gregorian calendar, the Chinese calendar is considered to be one of the most accurate astronomical calendars in the world.

According to Chinapage.com:

In 104 B.C. the length of a year was determined to an accuracy of 365.2502 days. By 480 A.D., Ju Chongzhi refined it to 365.2428 days, or 52 seconds more than the modern value of 365.2422 days. To put it another way, in 2,000 years the total discrepancy is less than one day!

As everyone knows, the modern international Calendar (based on the Gregorian calendar) uses a system of leap years and leap days to account for the fact there is a fractional day (0.2422) in addition to the standard 365 days per year. (More about the Gregorian Calendar here).

The Chinese Calendar, on the other hand, uses a different system to account for this discrepancy. Since a lunar cycle is 29.53 days (from new moon to new moon) then are 12.3685 lunar months in a solar year (365.2422 days). So most years will have 12 lunar months. The fraction of a lunar month is taken into account by every few years containing an additional leap month. Seven years out a 19 year cycle have a leap month, the exact years determined by a complex set of rules.

Read a much more detailed explanation at Wikipedia.com.


Good Night!

Dan

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