Which day do you prefer to wrap the week?

@urusan I was wondering, why is 7 days the number people agreed on for the most universal unit of time keeping around the world?

@csddumi
Good question. I suspect part of it has to do with the moon's cycle being 28 days long (or so I've been told), making a month, and 7 seems to be a reasonably small divisor of that to be the next lower level grouping of days. But at best that's only part of the answer, I think.

@digital_carver

It's certainly true, that the 7 day week predates the solar calendars (Caesarian and Georgian) and thus probably relates to the lunar calendars.

@digital_carver another benefit of a theory like yours, is that lunar phases are almost universal all across the world, which would explain why this is not a unit generally disagreed upon.

Follow

@csddumi
Yeah, that's what got me thinking in this direction - knowing that a lot of ancient cultures used a lunar calendar, and in India even today the original lunar calendar (the "Hindu calendar") is pretty important. So it's a commonality among many cultures, even those that wouldn't have been in contact back in the day.

@csddumi
Another thing that's true for India and maybe true for some other cultures too, is that there were thought to be 7 planets in the sky - Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (the others weren't visible). And the days of the week are named after them in India. So maybe that's the other part of it - 7 also corresponded to the number of known "planets". And people probably postulated some kidn of significant relationship between the planets and the days of the week.

Sign in to participate in the conversation
CleverLibre Social

CleverLibre Social is an inclusive social instance for open discussion, learning, and community.
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.