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161 lines
10 KiB
HTML
161 lines
10 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset="utf-8"/>
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<link rel="icon" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/favicon.ico"/>
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"/>
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<meta name="theme-color" content="#ff0000"/>
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<meta name="description" content="An interactive French Republican Calendar (a.k.a. French Revolutionary Calendar) that uses the original equinox method and never drifts out of sync with the seasons, along with revolutionary decimal time."/>
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<meta property="og:title" content="French Republican Calendar"/>
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<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
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<meta property="og:url" content="%PUBLIC_URL%"/>
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<meta property="og:description" content="An interactive French Republican Calendar (a.k.a. French Revolutionary Calendar) that uses the original equinox method and never drifts out of sync with the seasons, along with revolutionary decimal time."/>
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<meta property="og:image" content="%PUBLIC_URL%/logo512.png"/>
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<meta property="og:image:type" content="image/png"/>
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<meta property="og:image:width" content="512"/>
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<meta property="og:image:height" content="512"/>
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<meta property="og:image:alt" content="A calendar icon that displays the date 18 Brumaire."/>
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<link rel="canonical" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/"/>
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<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/logo192.png"/>
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<link rel="manifest" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/manifest.json"/>
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<title>French Republican Calendar (a.k.a. French Revolutionary Calendar)</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-md navbar-light">
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<div class="container">
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<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">French Republican Calendar</a>
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<button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-bs-toggle="collapse" data-bs-target="#nav-anchors"
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aria-controls="nav-anchors" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
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<span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
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</button>
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<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="nav-anchors">
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<ul class="nav navbar-nav mr-auto">
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<li class="nav-item">
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<a class="nav-link" href="#explanation">Explanation</a>
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</li>
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<li class="nav-item">
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://jcal.qt.ax">Julian Calendar</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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</div>
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</nav>
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<noscript>You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.</noscript>
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<div id="root"></div>
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<div class="main">
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<h2 id="explanation">Explanation</h2>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">What is this?</h4>
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<p class="lead">The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar">French Republican
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calendar</a> was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution.</p>
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<p>It is also frequently referred to as the <em>French Revolutionary Calendar</em>, but this is a misnomer:
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year 1 of the calendar started on 22 September 1792, the day after the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_abolition_of_the_monarchy">abolition of the
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monarchy</a> and the founding of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_First_Republic">French
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First Republic</a>.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">How does it work?</h4>
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<p class="lead">A year consists of 12 months of 30 days each, divided into three <em>décades</em> of 10 days
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each, followed by 5 complementary days (6 in leap years).</p>
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<p>The year starts on the day of the autumnal equinox at the Paris Observatory (longitude 2°20′14.03″ E). A
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leap year follow directly from this definition: a year is a leap year when the next autumnal equinox
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happens 366 days later instead of the normal 365. By this definition, the year will <b>never</b> drift
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with respect to the seasons.</p>
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<p>The 12 months are: <em>Vendémiaire</em>, <em>Brumaire</em>, <em>Frimaire</em>, <em>Nivôse</em>, <em>Pluviôse</em>,
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<em>Ventôse</em>, <em>Germinal</em>, <em>Floréal</em>, <em>Prairial</em>, <em>Messidor</em>, <em>Thermidor</em>,
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<em>Fructidor.</em> Every three months represent a season, and the endings of the names reflect this
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fact.</p>
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<p>The complementary days are: <em>la Fête de la Vertu</em>, <em>la Fête du Génie</em>, <em>la Fête du
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Travail</em>, <em>la Fête de l'Opinion</em>, <em>la Fête des Récompenses,</em> and <em>la Fête de la
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Révolution</em> (leap years only).</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">What's so special about this version?</h4>
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<p class="lead">Most versions of the calendar floating around doesn't use the original definition above.</p>
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<p>Most versions uses the so-called <em>Romme</em> method for leap years, using the same leap year rules as
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the Gregorian calendar, i.e. every year divisible by four, except century years not divisible by 400.
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This method might make sense, except years 3, 7, and 11 were leap years under the original rules and
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were observed as such in real life, but the <em>Romme</em> method instead makes years 4, 8, 12 leap
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years instead.</p>
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<p>This version uses the original rules. The <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/eph_export.html">JPL's
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DE440 and DE441 ephemerides</a> were used to calculate the exact timings of the autumnal equinoxes
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between the Gregorian years 13201 BCE and 17191 CE (corresponding to the French Republican years -14991
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to 15399). The times were then converted to UT1+00:09:21, the exact local time at the Paris Observatory.
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UT1 was chosen to keep track of the Earth's rotation without having to worry about the issues posed by
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leap seconds in UTC. Note that due to the uncertainty over
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%94T_(timekeeping)">ΔT</a> — the difference between UT1 and
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Terrestrial Time (TT) used in the ephemerides — it is theoretically possible for there to be
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inaccuracies when the equinox occurs very close to midnight.</p>
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<p>For more details about how I calculated this calendar, please see
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<a href="https://quantum5.ca/2022/03/09/art-of-time-keeping-part-4-french-republican-calendar/">my blog
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post on the topic</a>. This is the fourth part of a series on time-keeping, and you are highly
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encouraged to read the
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<a href="https://quantum5.ca/2022/02/16/art-of-time-keeping-part-1-years-dates/">first</a>
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<a href="https://quantum5.ca/2022/02/23/art-of-time-keeping-part-2-time/">three</a>
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<a href="https://quantum5.ca/2022/03/02/art-of-time-keeping-part-3-astronomy-equinoxes/">parts</a>
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for a more complete understanding.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">What are those names above the Gregorian date?</h4>
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<p>Those are the names of the days in the
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Rural_calendar">rural version of the
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calendar</a>. This was intended to replace the Catholic Church's calendar of saints, as the French
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Revolution wanted to reduce the influence of the church. Every day of the year has a unique name
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associated with the rural economy and these names are supposed to correspond with the season.</p>
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<p>Every <em>quintidi</em> is named after an animal, every <em>décadi</em> is named after an agricultural
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tool, and the remaining days are named after various plants or produce. The only exception is the winter
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month of Nivôse, which has the remaining days named after minerals.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">What are those numbers below the Gregorian date?</h4>
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<p>The five (or more) numbers separated by dots is the corresponding
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar">Mesoamerican Long Count
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calendar</a> date. This is commonly known as the “Mayan calendar.” This calendar is not
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available for dates before August 11, 3114 BCE (25 Thermidor -4905).</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="card">
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<div class="card-body">
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<h4 class="card-title">What is decimal time?</h4>
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<p class="lead">Decimal time is a time system used during the French Revolution that divided the day into 10
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hours, each with 100 minutes, which contained 100 seconds each.</p>
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<p>The result is 100,000 seconds in one day, compared to the 86,400 seconds with the normal 24-hour
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system. This makes it very easy to denote time as a decimal fraction of a day. For example, decimal time
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5:67:72 (around 13:37:31) on January 1, 2000 can be represented as <code>2000-01-01.56772</code>.</p>
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<p>Also note that each decimal hour is 2.4 normal hours, each decimal minute is 1.44 normal minutes, and
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each decimal second is 0.864 normal seconds.</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<footer class="footer">
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<div class="container">
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<p class="text-muted">Copyright © 2022<%= new Date().getFullYear() > 2022 ? `–${new Date().getFullYear()}` : '' %>
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<a href="https://quantum5.ca">Quantum</a>.
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Licensed under <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html">GNU AGPLv3</a>.
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Source code available on <a href="https://github.com/quantum5/qcal">GitHub</a>.<br>
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</p>
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</div>
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</footer>
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