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                                                                                                                Yuri Gagarin

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The following ideas are not part of our policies but nonetheless interesting and worth thinking about...

There are many calendars in use around the world today. Most of them are based on events which are closely associated with a particular culture and/or religion, which usually has little value or importance for us if  we don’t belong to them. The following calendar and time reform proposal is not related to any culture, religion or political system and hence more acceptable for international use. It is based on decimal time format which is much easier to measure, calculate and display (compared with the archaic 60 minute / 24 hours format).

Principles:

Calendar Beginning – the known start of the modern civilization which coincides with the end of the last ice age. Since precise dating of this event (many scientists believe this might have been a global catastrophe which ended with mass extinction and destruction) is not yet possible we shall assume that it happened 13 000 years ago, so this year (2008 in the Gregorian calendar) is year 13000.

Times before this event (day 1 of month 1 of year 1, or 1.1.1) shall be denoted with the minus (-) symbol (e.g. another catastrophic event happened 41 000 years ago, which shall be year  -28 000)

The year has 13 months

Each month has 28 days (or 4 weeks), only the last month has 29 days (or 30 days in leap year) Months shall have no names but use consecutive numbers from 1 to 13 (e.g. month 2). Month duration is still very close to the lunar cycle.

First day of the year (1/1) is on the winter solstice (around 22 Dec. in the Gregorian calendar)

1 week = 7 days, exactly 4 weeks in each month (except the last one)

Weekdays: again no names – use the letters of the Latin alphabet A,B,C, D,E,F,G (e.g. B-day, G-day, etc)

1 day = 10 hours (single digit format / display)

1 hour = 100 minutes (double digit format / display; one new hour = 2.4 old hrs)

1 minute = 100 seconds (double digit format / display; one new s = 0.864 old s)

Date format day/month/year  - e.g. 9 Oct.1996 = 2.11.12988

Author: RB ©

Most of us currently use the Indian/Arabic numbers which are relatively complex and require considerable effort and space. The numbers described below are very simple, stylish, logical and much easier! The new system uses 50% less graphic symbols – it is a combination of only 4 lines (2 vertical and 2 horizontal) as opposed to 7 lines (4 vertical and 3 horizontal) and a decimal point for the Indian / Arabic numbers.

All digits fit within a square and use a maximum of 4 lines – 2 vertical and 2 horizontal. Clockwise direction for feature progression. Aspect ratio (ratio between length of vertical and horizontal lines) can vary.

Explanation (see picture below)

1 -  has only one vertical line, similar to the original Indian / Arabic number

2 -  logically  has 2 lines, progressing from 1 in a clockwise direction

3, 4 & 5 - the 2-line “L-shape” rotates clockwise to produce 3 more numbers

6 - one extra horizontal line is added after 5 (looks like inverted C)

7, 8 & 9 - the 3-line “C-shape” rotates clockwise to produce 3 more numbers

0 – essentially a square, similar to the original Indian / Arabic number

The decimal point is just a horizontal line at the bottom (_) and also provides reference point to avoid confusion (for whole numbers it may be added after the digits to avoid ambiguity.