Happy Vernal Equinox!

The first day of Spring is here

Our calendar is deeply muddled. February with 28 days, “September,” “October,” “November,” and “December” corresponding not to months 7, 8, 9, and 10, but to 9, 10, 11, and 12, and the new year starting just after winter begins. Why is it so out of sync? Confusion about year lengths and reforms eventually gave us the Gregorian calendar we use today, an invention which is very well timed to the length of the year, but not to any reasonable start of the year.

It’s not hard to see when that start was originally intended, though: If you let the “Dec” of December show the way, January is the eleventh month, February the twelfth, and March the month beginning the new year. The Babylonians had a pretty good idea of how to do it; they started their year in Nisan, which is about to start in a few days. And with the benefit of modern Astronomy, we can do better: the Vernal Equinox is today, at this auspicious time when the day and night are of equal length (or if you like your calculus, when the day lengths reach an inflection point).

But what about our Australian readers? Don’t feel too put out. Granted, if you live in the southern hemisphere things may be a but weird for you, but you’ve still got an equinox—just the start of autumn. (Sorry if you live in neither hemisphere; readers who reside off-planet are going to have to figure out something else to do for today.)

So whoever you are, and wherever you live, may you have a Happy Equinox here on Planet Earth!

Image courtesy of Pixabay