#horoscopes

faab64@diasp.org

Countdown to Norooz/Nowrooz, the Persian new year and the start of spring!

Iranian mathematician, astrologist and poet, Omar #Khayyam, calculated the exact rotation of the earth around the sun in early 12rh century.

His calculations led to the creation of the Jalali calendar, name after the Jalaloddin the king of the time who was very interested in science, astronomy and poetry. His calculations found that a full year is 365.2424 days and not just 365 days as previously believed.
The calculation ledld to creation of #Persian (Jalali) calendar that consist of 6 months of 31 days, followed by 5 months of 30 days and the last month can be 29 or 30 days depending on the moment of sal-tahvil being on the morning or afternoon (most people use the #Jalali #calendar without knowing it when they read their #horoscopes every day).

His work fixed the almost 4000 year old solar calendar who lacked leap years and was causing problem for those following it (the parsi community in India still using the old calendar and celebrate #Norooz a day wrong every year leading to their Norooz celebration being held in summer of fall as years go by).

Khayyam's calculation was about 4 seconds off that was later corrected in 16th century to adjust the sal-tahvil or the break of the new year that is based on the exact time of city of Shiraz rotating an exact year around the sun.

As a tradition, Iranians all over the world, as well as Afghans, Turkmenistan, tajiks, Kurds and others who celebrate Norooz follow the same exact date and time no matter where in the world they love.
Here is the countdown to the Norooz of 2023
https://www.taghvim.com/norooz/
PS. There are many who doubt that Khayyam was the source of the calculation of Jalali calendar and there has been many heated debates about the subject.

#Iran #NewYear #Spring #Asrronomy #Tradition #History #Mathematics

hernanlg@diasp.org

“I have a foreboding of an #America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a #service and #information #economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome #technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the #public interest can even grasp the issues; when the #people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our #horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's #true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into #superstition and darkness...

The dumbing-down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential #media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on #pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of i#gnorance.”

-Carl Sagan, in “A demon haunted world: science as a candle in the dark" 1995.