Claus Tøndering
25 September 2000
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This document is Copyright ©2000 by Claus Tøndering.
E-mail: claus@tondering.dk.
The document may be freely distributed, provided this copyright notice is included and no money is charged for the document.This document is provided ``as is''. No warranties are made as to its correctness.
This is the calendar FAQ. Its purpose is to give an overview of the Christian, Hebrew, and Islamic calendars in common use. It will provide a historical background for the Christian calendar, plus an overview of the French Revolutionary calendar, the Maya calendar, and the Chinese calendar.Comments are very welcome. My e-mail address is given above.
I would like to thankfor their help with this document.
- Dr. Monzur Ahmed of the University of Birmingham, UK,
- Michael J Appel,
- Jay Ball,
- Tom Box,
- Chris Carrier,
- Simon Cassidy,
- Claus Dobesch,
- Leofranc Holford-Strevens,
- David B. Kelley of the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan,
- H. Koenig,
- Graham Lewis,
- Duncan MacGregor,
- Marcos Montes,
- James E. Morrison,
- Waleed A. Muhanna of the Fisher College of Business, Columbus, Ohio, USA,
- Stefan Potthast,
- Yves Sagnier of the Centre d'Etudes de la Navigation Aerienne,
- Paul Schlyter of the Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society
A few minor corrections have been made, the most interesting being the new algorithm in section 5.8.
Dates will be written in the British format (1 January) rather than the American format (January 1). Dates will occasionally be abbreviated: ``1 Jan'' rather than ``1 January''.Years before and after the ``official'' birth year of Christ will be written ``45 BC'' or ``AD 1997'', respectively. I prefer this notation over the secular ``45 BCE'' and ``1997 CE'' (See also section 2.13.4.)
Throughout this document the operator `mod' will be used to signify the modulo or remainder operator. For example,because the result of the division 17/7 is 2 with a remainder of 3.
Square brackets [like this] identify information that I am unsure about and about which I would like more information. Please write me at claus@tondering.dk.