shewasavisitor

Easter & your birthdays

Hi Girls,

I got caught up on determining the date of Easter (the first Sunday following the first full moon that occurs on or after March 21 – the date taken by the church to be the vernal equinox or first day of Spring).

The algorithm for the determination of Easter day was derived by Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855). I programmed it using Mathematica, and here are the years in which Easter has occurred and will occur on your birthdays:

Easter on April 15: 1906, 1979, 1990, 2001, 2063, 2074, 2096, 2131

Easter on April 14: 1895, 1963, 1968, 1974, 2047, 2058, 2069, 2115

So K, you had the conjunction of Easter and your birthday three times in your first 22 years, but you will be 84 years old before it happens again!

And C, although there were three conjunctions within 11 years not too long before your birth, you will be 65 years old before another conjunction! On the other hand, it will happen two times for you before it happens again for K.

As a final bit of trivia, I wondered whether my birthday will ever fall on Ash Wednesday. Given that I have a solution for Easter, the calculation for Ash Wednesday is quite straight forward (subtract 46 days) except that care must be taken for the occasional occurrence of a leap year. As it turns out, Feb 4 is the earliest possible date on which Ash Wednesday can occur and, as such, it is a rather rare event. The results are:

Ash Wednesday on Feb 4: 1693, 1766, 1818, 2285, 2353

So I will be 341 years old before I can experience this conjunction! I figure the chances of making it are <50%.

Cheers, Dad.

***

By that time, 84 will be the new 40. You’ll be in great shape.