The Real New Year - January 4, 2006

Why is December 31 the end of the “year”? Well, first what is a year; on earth it is the time is takes to complete one full orbit around the sun, more specifically 365 Days, 5 Hours, 48 Minutes, 46 Seconds. In order to keep track of how many times we go around the sun, it is convenient to keep track of each orbit by designating one day as the officially beginning and end of the year. But why December 31st, that date has no astrological significance at all (it does have cultural significance; some say it celebrates Jesus’ briss, actually many European countries used to start their new year on Christmas, while others start their new year on Easter). And Christmas was most likely modified to fall near the winter solstice (also known as Yule; it celebration the shortest day of the year). But we most recognize that the solstice (and seasons for that matter) has nothing to do with the closeness to the sun, it has to do with the tilt of the earth. Think about the orbit of the earth around the sun, it goes in an ellipse, not a circle, so logically you would think that the summers and winters would happen twice a year, not once (click here or see below). However, summer and winter are dictated by whether or not a particular hemisphere is tilted towards the sun, so even though, right now, New York is several million miles closer to the sun then during July, it is colder now because we are tilted away from the sun. I believe that the New Year should have a direct significance to the obit of the earth, either the day the earth is closest (aka the perihelion) or farthest (aka aphelion) from the sun. If we were to create a New Year’s date for other planets this would surely be the most reasonable, so why not for us. Randomly I choose to celebrate the earth’s aphelion as the indicator a new year, which for 2006 happens to be today at 3:00pm. So Happy New Year! And until I get better information I deem this year to be 4,550,000,006. Enjoy.