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Re: CHAT: Telling time (wasRe: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems fromconlangs))

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 3:08
On Mon, Sep 15, 2003 at 10:54:23PM -0400, Isidora Zamora wrote:
> Oops! I did not know that a lunar month was longer than 28 days. Now I > know.
And Knowing is Half the Battle! Sorry. Cartoon flashback. Ignore that. :) The time between consecutive occurrences of a given phase of the moon - called a "lunation" - varies over time, but at the moment the mean value is about 29.5306 days. The value used in Hebrew calendar calculations is 29 days, 12 793/1080 hours (the hour was traditionally divided up into 1,080 parts called halakim (singular helek) - a number chosen probably because it allowed precise representation of that average lunation value. -Mark