There are Seven Days in a Week... Wait, Why Seven?

Ever wonder why there are seven days in a week? Why not 8 or 4 or even 16?
Well, apparently the earliest known use of the seven day calendar was by the Hindus. They may have adopted a seven day week as early as the 1st century BCE! Other cultures adopted the seven-day week at different times.

The seven-day week is approximately a quarter of a lunation, lunation is the mean time for one lunar phase cycle, so it has been thought that this is the astronomical origin for the seven-day week. But there were several problems in this theory. The seven-day week is actually only 23.7% of a lunation, which means that a continuous cycle of seven-day week rapidly loses synchronisation with the lunation. In addition, a lunation is only the mean time for the lunar phase cycle, with each individual phase varying in length. Therefore, it is not immediately apparent why the seven-day week was selected by ancient cultures, rather than a six-day or a twelve-day week, or a week that divided the lunation more accurately using a factor of these number systems, such as a five-day or ten-day week.

Under Joseph Stalin's rule in 1929, the USSR  discontinued the seven-day week for a five day week, then later a six-day week. While the days were still named according to the seven-day week, the work schedules were rotated in five- and six-day periods. The seven-day week was reintroduced on 27 June 1940.

Even though at one point Russia and a few other countries, France to name one, used a week different from the seven day week stucture, by now, most if not all, countries have adopted the seven day week because of our global economy. 

Cool right! Oh and here is a cool thing I found on the internet. http://www.sherv.net/flip.html Look what I did!  


¡¡noʎ op os puɐ sǝlnɹ ɹǝƃƃolq

Hope you can figure out what it says!

*Next post to be made - Caterina Sforza