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And anyway, when did anyone even need to know what day of the week a date in some other year fell on? Wasn’t this mnemonic thing just a parlor trick? Poets – like that painter who hadn’t been impressed – concerned themselves with trees and flowers, light and shade, human and geological history, man’s failings and successes, life and death.
Goines tried to remember why he had become interested in calendars in the first place. It had surely started with the simple observation that calendars from past years could be used again, after which the Goineses had started saving their calendars.
He couldn’t remember how he had heard about using a mnemonic to quickly know what day of the week a holiday later this year would fall on, but that was something people frequently did want to know, for practical reasons.
And one night, when he was having trouble going to sleep, he had started thinking about calendars as a way to distract him from whatever thoughts might be keeping him awake.
And that helped...until it became such a fascinating exploration that he would lie there awake for hours pursuing it.
Was there something wrong with Goines for being fascinated by this? Was he trying to avoid things more important? And if so, what things, and why? Other people were following what had happened in Afghanistan, who the new (woman) governor of New York was, whether they should (or could) get a Covid booster shot, and on and on. But Goines couldn’t remember when he had last looked at the New York Times – other than to read something Mrs. Goines had sent him a link to.
On his walk the next morning, Goines set his misgivings aside and continued to think about his method for shifting from the 2021 calendar to other years. A thought from the day before jumped to the forefront just as he reached the electrical box where he did his pushups – the fact that all 14 unique calendars (7 for the leap years and 7 for the other years) were used in any given 28-year period, but that pattern would be interrupted by one of those years ending in 00 that Pope Gregory XIII had ruled wouldn’t be a leap year.
And furthermore, each 28-year cycle enclosed four sub-cycles of repetition, their pattern varying according to whether the 28-year cycle began on a leap year, or on one of the non-leap years. The cycle beginning with 2021, for example (2021 thru 2048), begins immediately following a leap year (2020), and its pattern of sub-cycles is, accordingly, 61-11-62-5. 2021 began on Friday, and so will 2027, 2038, and 2044.
This 61-11-62-5 pattern repeats over and over again in the 28-year cycles 1909–1936, 1937–1964, 1965–1992, 1993–2020, 2021–2048, 2049–2076, 2077–…until it butts up against the non-leap year 2100.
Might Goines use a shortcut to perform parlor tricks faster when they involved those years?
Goines tried August 25, 1976. What day of the week did it fall on, given that it will fall on Wednesday in 2021?
Well, 1976 occurred in the 1965–1992 cycle, 5 years into that cycle’s second sub-cycle, which began in 1971, the year before a leap year, implying that the 5 years involved 2 leap years (1972 and 1976). So, 5 + 2 shifts back from Wednesday brings us back to...Wednesday. August 25 fell on the same day of the week in 1976 as it will in 2021.
Goines’ first task would be to memorize that list of 28-year cycles between 1909 and 2099, as well as their sub-cycle pattern of 61-11-62-5. Then he’d be all set to see whether practicing the shortcut during the night helped him fall asleep…or kept him awake for hours….
And that helped...until it became such a fascinating exploration that he would lie there awake for hours pursuing it.
Was there something wrong with Goines for being fascinated by this? Was he trying to avoid things more important? And if so, what things, and why? Other people were following what had happened in Afghanistan, who the new (woman) governor of New York was, whether they should (or could) get a Covid booster shot, and on and on. But Goines couldn’t remember when he had last looked at the New York Times – other than to read something Mrs. Goines had sent him a link to.
On his walk the next morning, Goines set his misgivings aside and continued to think about his method for shifting from the 2021 calendar to other years. A thought from the day before jumped to the forefront just as he reached the electrical box where he did his pushups – the fact that all 14 unique calendars (7 for the leap years and 7 for the other years) were used in any given 28-year period, but that pattern would be interrupted by one of those years ending in 00 that Pope Gregory XIII had ruled wouldn’t be a leap year.
And furthermore, each 28-year cycle enclosed four sub-cycles of repetition, their pattern varying according to whether the 28-year cycle began on a leap year, or on one of the non-leap years. The cycle beginning with 2021, for example (2021 thru 2048), begins immediately following a leap year (2020), and its pattern of sub-cycles is, accordingly, 61-11-62-5. 2021 began on Friday, and so will 2027, 2038, and 2044.
This 61-11-62-5 pattern repeats over and over again in the 28-year cycles 1909–1936, 1937–1964, 1965–1992, 1993–2020, 2021–2048, 2049–2076, 2077–…until it butts up against the non-leap year 2100.
Might Goines use a shortcut to perform parlor tricks faster when they involved those years?
Goines tried August 25, 1976. What day of the week did it fall on, given that it will fall on Wednesday in 2021?
Well, 1976 occurred in the 1965–1992 cycle, 5 years into that cycle’s second sub-cycle, which began in 1971, the year before a leap year, implying that the 5 years involved 2 leap years (1972 and 1976). So, 5 + 2 shifts back from Wednesday brings us back to...Wednesday. August 25 fell on the same day of the week in 1976 as it will in 2021.
Goines’ first task would be to memorize that list of 28-year cycles between 1909 and 2099, as well as their sub-cycle pattern of 61-11-62-5. Then he’d be all set to see whether practicing the shortcut during the night helped him fall asleep…or kept him awake for hours….
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