This is the
only time you see this phenomenon in your lifetime.
August 2014
will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens only once every
823 years. The Chinese call it 'Silver
pockets full’. It is based on Chinese Feng Shui.
The
only time in my lifetime? Then I had
better pay attention! Right?
Not
so fast.
The
guy who sent this to me is reasonably intelligent, a second career professional
with a major government organization. If
he had stopped for a few seconds to
think about that "astonishing" claim, he would've realized something was wrong. I think the “silver
pockets full” thing mesmerized him, gave him evocative words and a mental image
to distract him from critical thought - much like a magician distracts his
audience with dramatic gestures.
According to this email the
month of August has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays only once
every 823 years, and this phenomenon is so unusual that it has a special
Chinese name. Now think about it.
I
probably would have dismissed the whole thing without thinking it all
the way through myself, except that the last day of August happens to be my
birthday. So I thought, "Oh, my
birthday is on Sunday this year."
Then I took a step back and did a mental double-take. "My birthday has been on Sunday before...
more than once,” I thought. This is particularly memorable to me because
when my birthday falls on Sunday, the next day is always Labor Day.
So
what did that email say? That I only get
a Sunday birthday once every eight centuries or so? Let’s think about that. By the 28th day of a month, any
month, we have already had four of each day of the week (28 divided by 7 is 4). So the 29th, 30th, and
31st are always the fifth of their own particular day of the week.
"I
know that every time I have a birthday it is on August 31st,” I
thought. Obviously. “And I know that every time I have a Sunday
birthday there are five Fridays (the 29th), five Saturdays (the 30th),
and five Sundays (the 31st) in the month of August."
Bottom
line: August has five Fridays, five
Saturdays and five Sundays, on average, once every seven years - every time
August 31st happens to fall on a Sunday.
There’s
more. Up to that point I had not considered the
other six months with 31 days each.
Hmmm... there are seven months with 31 days each, and whenever the 31st
of any one of those falls on a Sunday it will have five Fridays, five
Saturdays and five Sundays. That means
that this five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays thing happens, on
average, about once each year. Not once
every 823 years, with a funky Chinese name.
Then
there is that “Feng Shui” comment… Doesn’t feng shui have to do with the
physical arrangement of objects within an environment? I may not understand it completely, but I’m
pretty sure the focus of feng shui is spatial rather than temporal. Maybe the writer of this bit of amazing fiction
should’ve referred to the Mayan calendar instead.
The
morals of the story are these:
(1)
Don’t believe everything you read, especially if it comes to you in an email,
and
(2)
Pay Attention! Stop and think before you
pass along nonsense. It clutters our
inboxes and our minds, and it doesn't make you look good.
Of
course, everything on the Gryphem blog is completely reliable.
-
Gryphem
