There is nothing special about October 2010!
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
17 October 2010
Have you seen the SMS and/or email claiming that the month of October 2010 is special? I got one on Saturday 9th that read: “An interesting fact about October 2010. This has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays all in one month. It happens once in 823 years…”
When I saw this message I wondered: what happens once every 823 years? Is it a month that has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays, or an October having five of these three days?
Then I suddenly remembered that 9th October 1999 was an important day in my life and it was a Saturday (I am certain of that). Thus I reasoned that if 9th October 2010 was also a Saturday, it follows that the present month is identical to that of eleven years ago.
Therefore, October 1999 also had 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. Consequently, my immediate conclusion (even without checking the calendar) was that this message is not true.
A quick check on my mobile phone calendar revealed that October 2004 also had 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays…and the same will happen in 2021, 2027, 2032, etc. There is a clear pattern: this phenomenon repeats every 5, 6, 11, and 6 years, in that order.
Thus: 1999 + 5 = 2004; 2004 + 6 = 2010; 2010 + 11 = 2021; 2021 + 6 = 2027 and so on.
Furthermore, this is not a peculiarity of October in 2010. If you look at this year’s calendar, you will notice that October is identical to January: Both begin on a Friday and end on a Sunday; therefore both have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays.
In fact, any month with 31 days will have three consecutive days appearing five times. The reason for this is simple: if you divide 31 by the seven days in a week, you get four and a remainder of three days. Therefore, all the days of the week will appear four times and then three (the remainder after division) will appear an extra fifth time.
January, March, May, July, August, October and December all have this characteristic. December 2010, for example will have 5 Wednesdays, 5 Thursdays, and 5 Fridays.
I don’t know where the figure of 823 years came from because nothing in the calendar repeats once in that duration. The fact is: the modern Gregorian calendar has a 400-year cycle. After that duration, the years repeat in exact similar sequence. For example, 2010 is identical to 1610; 2011 will be the same as 1611; 2012 will be similar to 1612 and so on.
Therefore; no calendar pattern can be longer than 400 years.
In addition; if you subtract 823 years from 2010, you get the year 1187. Now that date does not exist in reality because the modern calendar only started on 24th February 1582 – 428 years ago!
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