Why Is the Week Divided into 7 Days?

[darkar]

Hello, why is there must 7 days in a week?

 

[vincentchan]

good question, it is because you are living in a cristian world... and the bible said god create the world in 7 days. the last day---- sunday, is for us to take a break... therefore sunday is holiday----or Holy-Day

 

[dextercioby]

Hey,i'm Cristian,too.I'm actually Daniel-Cristian.And for me Sunday is just they day i have to finish work i had to do in the previous 6 days...

Daniel-Cristian Ciobotu.

 

[brewnog]

Have a look at this link:

http://www.dbeat.com/28/

It proposes a 28 hour day, and a 6 day week. I'm up for it!

 

[franznietzsche]

Have a look at this link:

http://www.dbeat.com/28/

It proposes a 28 hour day, and a 6 day week. I'm up for it!

So we can have 1 day weekends?

I say we go to 36 hour days and 7 day weeks. I don't care about no matching the sun, if it weren't for the fact that my schedule has to revolve around everyone else i would run on 36 hour days naturally (i tried this over the summer, only sleeping when i was actually tired, and sleeping until i was ready to get up, i was going 36 hour days for about 7 24 hour days.)

 

[mattmns]

I do not think it matters how many hours are in a day, or how many days are in a week. After a while we would get used to the change and it would be just like it is now.

 

[Janus]

Hello, why is there must 7 days in a week?

The reason we have 7 days a week dates back to an old culture, that named the hrs of the day after the seven known heavenly bodies, Moon, Sun, Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, The order was in the order that they had determined as the distance of these bodies form the Earth. (of course it did not come out even and they had more than one hr a day named after the same body). If a day ended in an hr named after one planet, the next day started with the next planet on the list. The convention became to call each day after the planet whose hr started the day. This pattern repeated every seven days and is why the days of the week have the order they have. The names were later translated by other cultures into their equivalents. Thus we get Sun('s)day, Mo(o)n('s)day, Satur(n's)day, Thurs(Thor's)day (Thor is the Nordic equivalent to Jupiter.) Wednes(Woden's)day etc.

 

[brewnog]

So we can have 1 day weekends?

No. Did you even look at the link?

4 working days, and 2 days of weekend per week. 28 hour days, so the week lasts the same time. Potential benefits include a reduction by 20% in pollution due to people commuting to work.

 

[Monique]

that means that scientists have to squize even more working hours in a single day?? ;)

 

[franznietzsche]

that means that scientists have to squize even more working hours in a single day?? ;)

Thats why i say 36 hours, then we'll be able to sleep too.

 

[Janus]

I once heard about an idea for an 8 day week, in which you would work for 4 days and have 4 days off. In this scheme, every job would be done by two people, when one person was working, the other had days off and vice versa. This would apply to schools also, in this way a school could handle twice as many students in the same building as now. One of the reasons this idea was invented was the fact that we are increasingly becoming a "24/7" society, and this fits right in with this.

I don't think any of these plans have much of a chance to come to fruitition any time soon. A lot of the reason is evidenced in the first response made in this thread. Many people attach a religious importance to the 7 day week. You'd find very few that would agree to switching their Sabbath to a 6 or 8 day cycle. So, you'd have a lot of people refusing to work on certain days, And this day would change from work week to work week. (the very reason the tradition of a 2 day weekend started was because the Jewish and Christian Sabbaths fall on Saturday and Sunday).

 

[Janus]

good question, it is because you are living in a cristian world... and the bible said god create the world in 7 days. the last day---- sunday, is for us to take a break... therefore sunday is holiday----or Holy-Day

Actually, Saturday is the last day of the week and the original Sabbath as celebrated by Judaism. It is just that the early Christian's wished to distance themselves from their Hebrew brethern and bumped their Sabbath to the next day. (except for Seventh-day Adventists, who returned to the traditional Saturday Sabbath).

 

[franznietzsche]

Actually, Saturday is the last day of the week and the original Sabbath as celebrated by Judaism. It is just that the early Christian's wished to distance themselves from their Hebrew brethern and bumped their Sabbath to the next day. (except for Seventh-day Adventists, who returned to the traditional Saturday Sabbath).

The point is the same, the 7 day week is a religious observance.

 

[ohwilleke]

FWIW, the week has not always had seven days. There were historical periods in parts of the world where there were weeks of different length.

This source: http://www.indepthinfo.com/weekdays/theweek.shtml gives credits to the Babylonians trying to break a lunar cycle into quarters. Wikipedia agrees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week

This source: http://webexhibits.org/calendars/week.html cites Roman and British influences, while not discounting Babylonian influence.

This source, http://www.12x30.net/origin.html , notes that the Egyptians at a time when they had 12 months of thirty days had a ten day week, and that the Greeks had a ten day week at the same time (prior to 500 BC). It also claims that Rome had an eight day week prior to Constantine (321 AD) who was instrumental in Christianity becoming the established religion of Rome. See in accord this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar

This source: http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/1654/ , states that West Africa once had a five day week, and that China once had a fifteen day week.

The Mayans had something like a solar calendar with 13 and 20 days "weeks". See: http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html

Almost many cultures (China and the Hebrews, e.g.) had lunar calanders, and the current calander in common use is a product of a gross adjustment made around the time of the American Revolutionary war (there was a change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calander). France also had an alternative calander during the French Revolution. See generally for a variety of calendars still in use: http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html

 

[ohwilleke]

(the very reason the tradition of a 2 day weekend started was because the Jewish and Christian Sabbaths fall on Saturday and Sunday).

Well, that and a lot of hard work by the labor movement.

 

[tribdog]

The only hard part about a 28 hour day would be getting the Sun to slow down. He's sort of a jerk, from what I hear.

 

[JasonRox]

Is there anything in this world that doesn't involve the interference of religion?

 

[motai]

...or you could advocate the 4-day simultaneousness presented in https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=40773&highlight=Timecube on http://www.timecube.com

 

[franznietzsche]

Is there anything in this world that doesn't involve the interference of religion?

Nope.

Without religion we wouldn't even have atheists.

 

[franznietzsche]

The only hard part about a 28 hour day would be getting the Sun to slow down. He's sort of a jerk, from what I hear.

Yeah but he's good friends with the volcano god, so if we just offer you up, there shouldn;'t be too much trouble.

 

[brewnog]

Daylight is over-rated anyway. Let's face it, we have inexhaustable supplies of light bulbs these days.

 

[darkar]

This is what i found from the Encarta...

Week (from Latin vicis,”change”), period of seven days now in universal use as a division of time. It is of Hebrew or Chaldean origin and is mentioned as a unit of time in the Bible (see Genesis 29:27). The division of the lunar month into seven-day periods probably began as a celebration of the creation of the world in six days with the seventh day for rest. The Roman week was an eight-day period until 303 ad, when official recognition of the Christian religion made it necessary to celebrate the Sabbath every seventh day. The English names for the days of the week—Sunday (Sol), Monday (Moon), Tuesday (Tui, the Saxon Mars), Wednesday (Woden, or Mercury), Thursday (Thor, or Jupiter), Friday (Frygga, or Venus), and Saturday (Saturn)—come from Roman or Norse names for the planets.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The mention of Chaldean suggests that that discussion came from a christian source. Chaldean is their catchall name for the earlier mideastern cultuures.

It is likely that the seven day week began in the old Babylonian or Sumerian culture, and precisely because there are seven visible moving bodies in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They were deified as gods.

 

[Astronuc]

Hello, why is there must 7 days in a week?

I thought it was 8 days a week.

And if 24 hrs in a day is not enough, there is always the night.

 

[matthyaouw]

The only hard part about a 28 hour day would be getting the Sun to slow down. He's sort of a jerk, from what I hear.

Psst, the Earth revolves around the sun, not t'other way round :P

 

[Grogs]

The mention of Chaldean suggests that that discussion came from a christian source. Chaldean is their catchall name for the earlier mideastern cultuures.

It is likely that the seven day week began in the old Babylonian or Sumerian culture, and precisely because there are seven visible moving bodies in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They were deified as gods.

Hmm, this is very interesting. I know that 7 (along with 3, 12, and 40 - maybe others) have great religious significance in Judeo-Christian beliefs. I would be curious to see if they have a similar significance in some of these 'chaldean' religions.

I think we should not dismiss living out of synch with the sun as easy. I've made a few trips from the Eastern US to Korea. While in Korea, I worked night shift. Korea is 13 hours ahead, so nighttime in Korea lines up almost perfectly with daytime at home => should be no jet lag. Still, I had a hard time sleeping at first because I wasn't used to going to bed while it was light and waking up while it was dark. If we had, say, a 28 hour 'day' we would be making that adjustment constantly. I'm also a believer that the movements of the sun and moon have many subtle effects on our bodies and that going to sleep and waking up at a consistent time generally makes us feel better.