Calculating What Date Will it Be in 50,000 Days

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter rhimmelblau
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around calculating the date that will occur in 50,000 days, particularly focusing on the complexities introduced by leap years within the Gregorian calendar. Participants explore various methods, including algorithms and formulas, to determine the future date accurately.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant inquires about a formula for calculating a future date given a specific number of days, expressing uncertainty about handling leap years.
  • Another participant suggests using Mod7, though the context of this suggestion is not elaborated.
  • There is a repeated emphasis on the complexity of leap years, with a suggestion to consult a wiki for more information.
  • Some participants discuss the need for either an algorithm suitable for calculators or a more complex formula, indicating a preference for practical applications.
  • One participant outlines the rules for determining leap years in the Gregorian calendar, noting exceptions for century years.
  • References to external resources, including papers on calendrical calculations and built-in functions in spreadsheets like Excel, are provided to support the discussion.
  • Julian Day Numbers (JDN) are mentioned as a method used in many date calculation routines, suggesting a potential avenue for further exploration.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express varying levels of understanding and approaches to the problem, with no consensus reached on a specific method or formula for calculating the date in 50,000 days. The discussion remains open-ended with multiple perspectives presented.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights the complexity of leap year calculations and the potential need for specific algorithms or formulas, but does not resolve the mathematical steps or assumptions involved in these calculations.

rhimmelblau
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Is there a formula to calculate what date it will be in a certain number of days? I've tried to work this out on my own but don't know what to do with those pesky leap years.

Say you figured out that a comet you want to see will have its closets approach to Earth again in 50,000 days, and you want to mark it on your calendar.
 
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Just work Mod7 .
 
rhimmelblau said:
Is there a formula to calculate what date it will be in a certain number of days? I've tried to work this out on my own but don't know what to do with those pesky leap years.

Say you figured out that a comet you want to see will have its closets approach to Earth again in 50,000 days, and you want to mark it on your calendar.

You should read the wiki on leap years since it's a little more complicated than just adding a day every 4th year.

Also, are you looking for an algorithm (what calculators would probably use) to find the date, or do you want an actual formula which I'd have to admit would be more complicated?
 
Mentallic said:
You should read the wiki on leap years since it's a little more complicated than just adding a day every 4th year.

Also, are you looking for an algorithm (what calculators would probably use) to find the date, or do you want an actual formula which I'd have to admit would be more complicated?

Looking for a algorithm I could punch into my calculator or include in a piece of code.
 
Alright well it's not too hard to deal with leap years. Basically, it's a leap year every 4 years, except every century (not including every 400 years).
 
For the Gregorian calendar, a year is a leap year if it is evenly divisible by 4, except in the case of century years (which end in '00'), which must be evenly divisible by 400. Thus, 2000 was a leap year while 1900 was not and 2100 will not be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

This paper describes some algorithms for calendrical calculations:

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachumd/papers/cc-paper.pdf

Most spreadsheets like Excel include date calculating functions built in. In any event, most of these routines use Julian date calculations, where each date on the calendar has a unique integer, called a Julian Day Number (JDN), associated with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day
 

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