Astronomical Calendar Repetitions - Happy New Year 2017!

On the eve of 2017 I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

For this post, I'm using information from one of my old blog posts from 2011 and have slightly updated it.

I recall way back to my 16th birthday. It was just after November of 1995 and I was given my first PC computer system for my birthday. It's a pivotal moment in my own history since that is when I really started to get into I.T. and the technical computing field. This will be my 22nd year being in I.T.

I discovered a number trick in a really nerdy way. The way I discovered this number trick was after my older brother Clyde gifted me this awesome Playboy Playmate calendar full of beautiful women for Christmas. I wanted to figure out how the calendar system worked and to see if the Calendar would repeat itself so that I could re-use the sexy calendar in the future. I utilized my Windows 95 PC to help me find it.

Here's what I did. I recorded the number of the day, the day of the week, and the year. Then I used the calendar on Windows 95 to discover when the exact same day occurred again. I found that the exact same number of the day, exact day of the week occurred again 5 years later, and then 6 years from that date, and then 11 years from that date and then again 6 years from that date. Then the cycle would repeat.

For an example I will just use my birth year. I was born in 1979. The next time my birthday would occur on the exact same number and day of the week was 1984, then 1990, then 2001, then 2007. Then the cycle of 5,6,11,6 years repeats again. So my birthday will be the exact same day as my actual birth in 2012, 2018, 2029,2035 etc.

Another interesting fact is that it works universally for anyone's birthday and for any specific date. If you are tracking your birthday like I was, the date will repeat on the exact day of your birth on your [5th, 11th, 22nd, 28th,] [33rd, 39th, 50th, 56th,] [61st, 67th, 78th, 84th,] [89th, 95th, 106th, 112nd] birthday. This works for any day. It doesn't need to be your birthday. It can be used for any day of the year that you want to track. If you wanted to see when a Holiday event occurred on the exact same day in the future, you can also use this method to check it out.

I have never been interested in Chronometry or Horology but this is an awesome calendar trick! It is pretty interesting to see how time is measured and is associated to Astronomy. Spread the word to your friends and family.