40
year. The date, day of the week, month
and year are therefore indicated me-
chanically, without the slightest need
for readjustment until 1
st
March 2100.
All these are interlinked by an ingenious
mechanism: a genuine, entirely mechan-
ical programme. Thus merely changing
the initial date effects the appropriate
changes in all other functions.
Our time measurement is based on the
Gregorian calendar, i.e. a year of 365
days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 sec-
onds, or in decimals, 365.242192 days.
In practice, the yearly excess of just
less than a quarter (0.242192) of a day
is corrected by 29
th
February in leap
years. The few missing decimals are
then compensated for every 100 years,
by excluding 29
th
February.
For the sake of greater precision, this
exclusion does not take place when
the number of centuries is divisible by
4. Such is the case in the year 2400
(divisible by 4), which is a regular leap
year. It is therefore only in the year
2100 that the programming of your
Summary of Contents for HYBRIS MECHANICA CALIBRE 184
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