All Things Considered’s Gary Eichten talks with a professor about the equinox. Saint's Days, dates, start of seasons, as well as holidays are humorously discussed.
All Things Considered’s Gary Eichten talks with a professor about the equinox. Saint's Days, dates, start of seasons, as well as holidays are humorously discussed.
SPEAKER 1: Most of our events prior to much science injection was done in terms of the various Saints days. And the seasons used to be marked by winter would begin on St. Catherine's Day, which is November 23rd. Then spring began on St. Peter's Day, which is February 22nd. And summer began on St. Urban's Day, which is May 25th. And fall began on St Bartholomew's Day, which is August 24th. Now, temperature wise, this defines the seasons, I think, much better than what we have now. But to make things more precise, the astronomers got into the act.
SPEAKER 2: Sounds to me like it may be time to move back in the other direction, don't you think?
SPEAKER 1: I would think that would make a lot of sense to me.
SPEAKER 2: Forget about the Saints days. But find some other--
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, yeah, there could be a much better division. Because a lot of times, we'll have a snowstorm in November. And people say it isn't even winter yet. Well, this is nonsense.
SPEAKER 2: Right. Now, as a scientist, would that upset you?
SPEAKER 1: Not me.
SPEAKER 2: [LAUGHS]
SPEAKER 1: I think it'd be a good idea.
SPEAKER 2: So there is no scientific reason why we couldn't go back to a calendar system as opposed to this physics astronomy system?
SPEAKER 1: In my mind, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be-- well, I think if you don't like Saints days, you could just designate these dates pretty well as--
SPEAKER 2: Or maybe like Labor Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, something like that.
SPEAKER 1: Well, let's see, Labor Day would not be so good, I don't think, because-- well, that wouldn't be too bad. Let's see. Labor Day is in September. And the autumnal here, it's August 24th. That's pretty good. I guess we could use Labor Day as one of them.
SPEAKER 2: Maybe go to Thanksgiving then?
SPEAKER 1: And then Thanksgiving would be pretty good. And then we could take Washington's birthday and Memorial Day.
SPEAKER 2: Right. Or maybe go up to March 1st or something since it tends to be a little--
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 2: But no good scientific reason we couldn't do that.
SPEAKER 1: There's no good scientific reason that I know of, except I suppose all the records would be screwed up.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah. Who controls that kind of thing? Do you know?
SPEAKER 1: Well, I don't really know. I usually have a big conference that decides on this sort of a thing. It's a worldwide conference. And people get together and do this sort of thing.
SPEAKER 2: You think there's any chance that the big wigs will one day decide that maybe the scientific community can continue to measure the plane of the Earth relative to the Sun? But for the rest of us, we can just kind of operate on a Labor Day, Thanksgiving type schedule?
SPEAKER 1: I would suspect that we'd have a hard time. People are getting so precision minded. The injections of science is such that you've got to have a good measuring system in order to determine exactly what it is. And they can do that.
Whereas if we arbitrarily set days-- well, I don't know. I suppose they could measure a particular day. But they liked the idea of doing it the way they're doing it now. So I don't think we'd get very far.
SPEAKER 2: In the clutches of science.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, we're in the clutches of science.
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