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annomandaris t1_jaarnci wrote

Reply to comment by icelandichorsey in Eli5: How did people know how long a year was in olden times? by Slokkkk

lol, you don't need the scientific method to count 13 lunar months, 28 days, 364 days in a year. and then after a few years you would realize that your days are off a little. After a few resets, it wouldn't be hard to realize that 1 day every 4 years keeps it on track.

This would have been known and kept track of so long ago, 50K? maybe 100K years ago. They didn't have writing tools but they had pretty sophisticated markings on sticks and stuff.

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AliMcGraw t1_jabbit3 wrote

Also deadass giveaway that someone is a man who doesn't know much about women and generally lacks curiosity about the world when it doesn't occur to them that a lunar cycle would be of INTENSE INTEREST and OBVIOUS USE to the 50% of humans who menstruate on roughly a lunar cycle.

"Well, I don't need to know the lunar cycle, so I don't see why ANYONE would," u/icelandichorsey harrumpfs to himself, before explaining to the woman unfortunate enough to sit next to him on public transit how science works, actually.

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im_the_real_dad t1_jaciaaf wrote

So you're saying that the lunar cycle appears to be 23 days long to some women and it appears to be 33 days long to other women and to still other women the moon goes through the lunar cycle in some number of days in between?

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icelandichorsey t1_jabmwj2 wrote

I'm sorry, what the actual fuck? How did you get there from my 2 lines about the scientific method? You know literally nothing abjht me. Projecting much?

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Erablian t1_jabcrc5 wrote

The synodic month averages 29.53 days, quite a bit different from your 28-day month. After 13 of those, your calendar would be 9.6 days out of sync with the actual phase of the moon.

13 synodic months is about 384 days, not 364.

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