Have a ball! 2012 will repeat after 159,600,000 years
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
01 January 2012
Happy New Year! Today is the first day of 2012 and it is a Sunday. When do you think was the last time that a year started on a Sunday? While you think about that, let’s take a quick look back at 2011.
There was quite some excitement on 11th November because the shorthand form of the date was 11/11/11. The climax was at 11 minutes past 11 o’clock! As usual, emails started flying about predicting doom at that hour, but we now know that nothing significant happened; what a shame?
If you missed the opportunity to celebrate, don’t worry; the special date will come back in about 100 years (on 11th November 2111). You might not be alive to see it, so you could prepare for the 4th of March 2021 (4/3/21) – or the 3rd of April 2021 for the Americans.
Still, I think that today is a special day and quite rare day. The last time that a year started on a Sunday was in 2006. However, the calendars of the two years (2006 and 2012) are not identical. This is because 2012 is a leap year while 2006 was not.
The next year to start on a Sunday will be 2017, then 2023 followed by 2034 and so on. Thanks to modern telephone technology, I have checked backwards and forwards and found a sequence. A Sunday New Year’s day occurs every 6, 5, 6, and 11 years respectively.
That is, starting from 2006, add 6 years and you get 2012; add 5 to 2012 and you have 2017; add 6 again and you are at 2023. From here you need 11 years and you land on 2034. The sequence repeats with 2040, 2045, 2051 and so on. All those years begin on a Sunday.
However, their calendars are not identical: all the dates of those years DO NOT fall on the same days of the week. Such a repeat occurs once every 28 years. For example, the year 2040 will be similar to this one (2012) and 2039 will be the same as 2011.
The number 28 arises from the fact that there are seven days in a week and there is a leap year every four years. Seven multiplied by four comes to 28. Still, even though all the dates of 2040 will fall on the same days of the week as those of 2012, the two years will not be exactly identical.
The reason is that the dates of the Easter holiday are not the same: in 2012, Easter Sunday will be on 8th April while in 2040 it will be on 1st April. We have to wait a very long time before we get another leap year beginning on a Sunday and with Easter falling on the 8th of April.
Easter appears to scatter erratically on the
calendar. However, it follows a well known cycle, and I wrote about it
some years ago (in 2004). The bottom line is that the Easter cycle
repeats itself once every 5,700,000 years. Thus, my first guess is that
a year like this one (2012) will only return after 5,700,000 x 28 =
159,600,000 years! So go ahead and through a party, this is surely a
special year.
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