Leap years could become a thing of the past if a new calendar proposed by Johns Hopkins University professors is adopted.
Astrophysicist Richard Henry and applied economist Steve Hanke proposed their calendar in the January edition of “Globe Asia.” It takes government approval to change which calendar a country uses, Hanke said.
In the proposed calendar, there would be 364 days a year. To account for the extra days, there would be an extra week in December every five or six years.
Rosey Arcebido, a 22-year-old UF Japanese-language senior, said the new calendar would take some time to adjust to.
“It would probably throw me off, but I would get used to it,” she said.
She said the leap year confuses her anyway.
“I know there’s a reason why it’s there, but I don’t understand it,” she said.
The two Johns Hopkins professors also proposed abolishing time zones and adopting Universal Time, under which it would be the same time everywhere.
“This is a change of a pretty big magnitude,” said Ron Kirsch, executive director of the Leadership Development Institute. “My guess is that people are not going to like it.”
He said it could take years for a country to adjust to a new calendar. He said the new calendar sounded strange, but it could be adopted if most of a country’s population felt it would work better.
“You’re always going to have people who resist,” he said. “They need to make the changes as user-friendly as possible.”
