So, the other day, the year 1971 just popped into my head. Don’t ask me why, it just did. And then I started wondering, when was Easter that year? Not something you’d normally look up, right? But the thought stuck with me.
My little experiment
I figured, instead of just googling it like a normal person, I’d try to figure it out myself. You know, like they might have had to do back in the day, before everyone had a supercomputer in their pocket. I remembered hearing there were old ways to calculate it, some kind of formula.
So, I dug around a bit – okay, I did a quick search for how to calculate it, not the date itself! – and found a set of steps. Looked like a bunch of divisions and then using the leftovers. Seemed straightforward enough, I thought. Famous last words, eh?
Here’s what I did, basically. I took the year, 1971, and started crunching numbers:
- First, I did 1971 divided by 19, and noted down the remainder. That was 15.
- Then, 1971 divided by 4, the remainder was 3.
- And 1971 divided by 7, which left 0. Easy peasy.
Then there were a couple of ‘magic numbers’ you need for calculations in the 1900s and 2000s. For the century 1971 falls into, these numbers turned out to be 24 and 5. Got those written down too.
Next, a bit more arithmetic:
- I took that first remainder (15), multiplied it by 19, added that magic number 24. Then I divided the whole lot by 30 and found the remainder. That gave me 9.
- Then another calculation: 2 times my second remainder (3), plus 4 times my third remainder (0 – that was easy!), plus 6 times that 9 I just worked out, plus that other magic number 5. Got a total, divided by 7, and the remainder was 2.
The Moment of Truth… or so I thought
Alright, so I had my two key numbers: 9 and 2. The old instructions said, if these two numbers added together are less than 10, then Easter is in March. If they’re 10 or more, it’s in April.
My numbers, 9 and 2, added up to 11. So, April it was! The rule for April was to take that sum (11), subtract 9, and that’s your date in April. So, 11 minus 9 is 2.
April 2nd! I thought. Felt pretty chuffed with myself, actually. Like I’d cracked some ancient code. Pat on the back for me.
Well, that was unexpected!
Then, just for kicks, mostly to confirm my genius, I decided to do what I should have done in the first place. I typed “Easter 1971 date” into a search engine.
And guess what? April 11th. Not April 2nd. April ELEVENTH.
Huh.
So, my little manual calculation was off. By a good nine days! I must have messed up a step, or maybe the simplified rules I found weren’t quite the full story for that specific year. These old calculation methods, they’re clever, but it seems there’s always a twist or a turn you don’t see coming.
It was an interesting little exercise, though. Makes you appreciate how easy we have it now with calendars on our phones and computers just telling us these things. Still, it was a bit of fun trying to work it out, even if I didn’t quite hit the bullseye for Easter 1971. A good reminder that things aren’t always as simple as they look!
