A golden number (sometimes capitalized) is a number assigned to each year in sequence to indicate the year's position in a 19-year Metonic cycle. They are used in the computus (the calculation of the date of Easter) and also in the Runic calendar. The golden number of any Julian or Gregorian calendar year can be calculated by dividing the year by 19, taking the remainder, and adding 1. (In mathematics this can be expressed as (year number modulo 19) +1.)
For example, 2012 divided by 19 gives 105, remainder 17. Adding 1 to the remainder gives a golden number of 18.
The term golden number is first documented in Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum (ca. 1151) and in the computistic poem Massa Compoti by Alexander de Villa Dei in 1200. Later, a scribe added it to tables originally composed by Abbo of Fleury in 988.
Famous quotes containing the words golden and/or number:
“I prefer “you” in the plural, I want “you,”
You must come to me, all golden and pale
Like the dew and the air.
And then I start getting this feeling of exaltation.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)