"Nameless" <news.mail@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Tom Lake" wrote:
>> Although it doesn't mention 1800, here's a Website that
>> discusses some of Gauss' flaws:
>>
>> http://www.georgeszpiro.com/index.asp?page=kepler/chapter07.htm
>>
>> "Why did Gauss's formula for the determination of Easter
>> holiday stop in 1999? In his calculations he went all the
>> way to leap2-years but, unlike Pope Gregory, he decided to
>> stop short of leap3-years. That means that his formula
>> gives the correct results only until the first leap3-year,
>> which was the year 2000. After that, the results are off
>> by one day, and after the year 2400 they will be off by two
>> days. That's a real shame, because it would have been ever
>> so nice to use Gauss's method at least until the year 2525."
>
> Thanks, Tom, that is indeed an interesting webpage. However,
> it doesn't explain the correct calculations given by Gauss'
> formula as reproduced here:
>
> http://home.get.no/~dudley/calendar/flow_01.pdf
>
> I remain baffled! :(
The book "Calendrical Calculations by Nachum Dershowitz and Edward M.
Reingold says (note on page 51) that the original Gauss algorithm gave
the first error for the year 4200 and cites "Puzzles and Paradoxes" by
T. H. O'Beirne. I've seen similar statements about year 4200 and later
elsewhere.
I don't believe I've ever seen Gauss' original unmodified algorithm. I
have several books on calendar calculations, and none of them has one
claimed defininitely to be Gauss' original algorithm. The closest is a
C routine in "Standard C Date/Time Library" by Lance Latham (page 170),
which is taken from a COBOL routine by Joao de Magalhaes. The routine
restricts input to the renge 1583-2199. Project Gutenberg apparently
doesn't have any of Gauss' works. I've done web searches and have yet
to find one that I'm confident is Gauss' original algorithm.
However, if an algorithm returns correct values for all years, it isn't
Gauss' original algorithm, which we know to be flawed. :-)
--
Judson McClendon judmc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
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