The Easter Problem

[Chz]

In-Depth: Your Patek Philippe Caliber 89 Now Needs A Service – A Look At Horology's Easter Problem

Or how to mechanically calculate the date of Easter, when the cycle only repeats itself every 5.7 million years. I know it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, but I never realised it was quite that complicated to predict ahead of time. And that clock in Strasbourg is awesome!

 

[Crispy]

Fascinating. Thank you

 

[2hats]

Interesting. Though fundamentally it doesn’t repeat (it is ultimately a chaotic, astronomical system with subtle long term, aperiodic, varying energy losses, gains, transfers) so can not be modelled by any practical mechanical system for anything other than a constrained period of time (as the Scientific American article finally spells out).

 

[Crispy]

Could you somehow detect the actual equinox with physical/mechanical sensors to adjust for tidal drag etc.
(eg. the 10,000 year clock synchonises itself to local solar time mechanically)

 

[kabbes]

Did you ever read the strange case of the low IQ savant twins who could just “see” the date for Easter thousands of years into the future?

http://moodle.isl.edu.lv/pluginfile.php/7626/mod_resource/content/1/Oliver Sacks.pdf

From p95 on in that link.