Why was October 1582 missing 10 days and what happened then? Where did those 10 days go?

"An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, an inch of gold can't buy an inch of time" - "Zengguang Xianwen, Part 1"

Time is the most ruthless thing. It will not stop or even go backwards because of people's subjective wishes. It will only flow forward. For everything dominated by time, human beings seem to be active, but in fact they are passive. They can only watch their skin gradually darken, their muscles atrophy, and their body functions decline until they die. Why was October 1582 missing 10 days and what happened then? Where did those 10 days go?

Scientists define time as "the eternal movement of matter, the persistence of change, and the sequential performance". It can be seen that time is only a measurement concept for the movement and development of matter in physics. Science continues to move forward, and people's understanding of time is becoming more and more profound. According to the theory of modern cosmology, the universe is constantly expanding and developing. It originated from a "big bang", and in the big bang Before, without the existence of the motion of matter, there was no concept of time to speak of.

Mastering the laws of time is actually mastering the laws of motion of matter, which is extremely important for people's daily life. In an ancient society with low productivity, it was difficult for people to grasp even the most basic survival. Therefore, agriculture has become the top priority of the country, and feeding a full stomach is the lifelong dream of many people. Farmers must follow the weather and arrange the time of planting and harvesting with the changing of the sun, the moon and the stars and the changing seasons. As early as two thousand years ago in China, there was a lunar calendar compiled according to natural laws, which is often referred to as the lunar calendar, and it is still widely used by the Chinese today.

The development of the calendar is also a major symbol of the progress of human civilization. The birthplace of the Western calendar was in ancient Rome, and the "Julian Calendar" promulgated during the reign of Julius Caesar had the greatest influence. However, the calendar was not perfect at first. According to people's observation of the sun, it simply stipulated that the first three years were 365 days in total, and the fourth year was one more day, which was 366 days. According to the precise detection of modern scientific and technological instruments, the time of a solar year is about 362.2422 days. If the calculation is carried out according to the Julian calendar, there will be an average error of about 11 minutes and 14 seconds per year. This kind of error is difficult to be noticed by people in a year, but as time goes by, the error is getting bigger and bigger, and it has gradually attracted people's attention. On the surface, it seems that there is only an error in time, but this error has a great impact on people's social production and life. Finally, in 1582 AD, the Roman Church began to think about the calendar.

During Pope Grigory's reign, an astronomer observed that the long-used Julian calendar had given up to ten days of difference in actual time. He reported this observation to the Holy See, and the upper echelons quickly A meeting was held to discuss the situation. At the meeting, people were mainly divided into two factions. One faction was to artificially erase the time from October 5th to the 15th of this year, so that the wrong time could be brought back on the right track. One faction believes that time is the law of nature and the will of God. As devout religious believers, they cannot easily change it.

In the end, Pope Grigory came to a conclusion. He publicly expressed his support for the former faction and decided to shorten the October of the year by ten days. At that time, the wisdom was not open, and many people did not understand why the Pope did this. In the eyes of most of them, the actual time and the time of the calendar were exactly the same. With the level of knowledge of ordinary people, they could not understand what the Pope did for the sake of Better help them produce and live. In medieval Europe, idealism was rampant, and it was an official ruling ideology. The consequence of the rule of ignorance was that people recognized the laws of nature as some kind of mysterious force, and they called the owner of this mysterious force God, or Allah "Allah". Because of this, the calendar change in AD 1582 aroused criticism from the people at the time.

Over time, when we look at this history from the perspective of modern people, we will find out how wise the decision made by Grigori was. Later, in order to commemorate Grigory's outstanding contribution to the calendar, the international Gregorian calendar that is now commonly used is called the "Gregory Calendar". Grigory's reforms "disappeared" ten days in October of that year, but brought people more lasting convenience and happiness. Compared with such a bumpy calendar change in the West, the development history of the Chinese lunar calendar seems to be a lot from one to the end.

It is a marvel of world history that the ancestors of China were able to determine the time with the naked eye without any precision instruments. We enjoy the achievements of our predecessors, walk on the grand road paved for us by our predecessors, and stand on the shoulders of our predecessors. This is why we have today's highly developed technology. We must inherit the achievements of our predecessors, and build on this foundation. continue to be promoted.