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nology and political reality would converge to favor deliberate reform of the type envisioned. |
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The spread of computer power, which more than any other single factor was responsible for killing calendar reform, may also contribute to its rebirth in a different form in the future. There is clearly a trend toward increasing regionalization as smaller entities become more self-sufficient and toward the use and affirmation of selected bits of traditional cultures as means of coping with modernization. |
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It is possible that software that facilitates the conversion of one date/time system to another will permit the proliferation of regional and private systems for internal use, even while the Gregorian system becomes firmly entrenched as a kind of communications standard between systems. As the software becomes powerful and ubiquitous, date/time systems may become more a matter of elective choice. In such an environment, reform would not be a matter of imposing a single standard, but a matter of electing a preferred choice. |
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Reformers often fail to realize that the Gregorian calendar is one of the few truly international standards on the face of the planet. It is certainly not universally and exclusively accepted, but it is accepted as the single certain means of communicating dates between cultures that use different calendars. |
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The question of reform simultaneously raises the issue of eliminating the Gregorian calendar. And this prospect should not be taken lightly, regardless of the technical merits of another system. The Gregorian calendar became a global standard only in the 20th century. Its role as a standard was not won on its technical merits, but by virtue of a sequence of historical events that took certain aspects of European culture into other parts of the globe. The standard is a result of historical accident. We shall not be so lucky twice. |
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From a practical political perspective, a serious reform effort would simply open the door to competing claims. Calendars are not selected primarily on their technical merits, so there would be no objective measure by which to decide among the candidates. In the end, a large number of groups would refuse to use the winning system, no matter what it was or how the decision was made. The only lasting result would be to throw away the one standard that does exist. |
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Putting all the pieces together, it is possible to see that a future role for the Gregorian calendar as a communications standard may be useful for a certain period into the future in the context of manual use and existing computer software. That role, however, is more easily filled by the Julian Day number system for computer use. |
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One possible evolution for date/time software, then, would see the Julian Day number system replace the Gregorian calendar as a backbone for conversions. Groups could use whatever calendar system they pleased for internal purposes, knowing that the import and export of date/time was mediated by the Julian Day number system and automatically translated into corresponding local date/times all over the world. This work is a first step in that direction. |
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