Sunday Burst of Weirdness

It seems that a physics professor doesn't like the fact that he has to redo his lesson plans, syllabi, exams, and whatnot each year because the dates change. So he thinks the entire world should switch to a new calendar in which dates always fall on the same day:

"For many years, I've had to make up a new schedule to tell my class when homework is due," says Dick Henry, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US. "Here I am putting all this totally unnecessary work in and I decided I better do something about it."

Damn, I feel bad for this guy. The indignity of it all! How can we possibly expect a guy with tenure to do his own admistrativia! The horror!

He's got it all figured out, too:

To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. He named the addition "Newton Week" in honour of his favourite physicist, Isaac Newton.

"If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice," he says.

Well, Newton's OK if you like that sort of thing, but I want to have Newman Week instead.

And then there's this:

Henry hopes to have rallied enough support for his plan to start it on 1 January 2006, when New Year's Day in both the old and new calendars falls on a Sunday. And he is not stopping with dates - Henry says the entire world should operate on Greenwich Mean Time. People in the eastern US, for example, would have to get used to eating their midday meals when the clocks read 1700. "People are adaptable if benefits are there," says Henry.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

I love science and all, but come on. This scheme is something that this guy would dream up, just before getting pantsed by this guy. "He's gone now, but you gotta admire his spirit!"

(via Simian Farmer)