Please Enjoy Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Lonely, Determined Campaign Against The New Year
Astronomically insignificant...like your tweets.
Astrophysicist and frequent buzzkill-tweeter Neil deGrasse Tyson has a bone to pick. He’s had a bone to pick every time a new year’s rolled around for the past while, actually, because he reckons it’s an “astronomically insignificant” time for the new year to roll around.
Basically, he’s made it his bizarre, lonely mission to remind us every year that January 1 is a totally arbitrary point in the Earth’s lap around the sun. And, like, sure, but also no one was saying it wasn’t?
you should be arrested pic.twitter.com/50hGPsMjN9
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) January 1, 2018
“Not that anybody’s asked,” he wrote today, “but New Years Day on the Gregorian Calendar is a cosmically arbitrary event, carrying no Astronomical significance at all.” He’s totally right — nobody asked.
Nobody asked at the start of 2017, either, when he tweeted “to all on the Gregorian Calendar, Happy New Year! A day that’s not astronomically significant…in any way…at all…whatsoever.” Nor did anyone ask at the start of 2016, when he tweeted “to all those who reckon time on the Gregorian Calendar — Happy New Year! (FYI: January 1 is astronomically insignificant.)”
No one asked in 2014, 2011, or any of the other years either. Here’s a fairly comprehensive collection of these tweets.
Not that anybody’s asked, but New Years Day on the Gregorian Calendar is a cosmically arbitrary event, carrying no Astronomical significance at all.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2018
To all those who reckon time on the Gregorian Calendar – Happy New Year! (FYI: January 1 is astronomically insignificant.)
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2016
Jan 1. A day of no astronomical significance. Except in 2014 it gets the New Moon at perigee, its closest approach to Earth.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2014
January 1, 2011: Happy New Year to all — at this arbitrary spot in Earth's orbit around the Sun.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2011
In 2012, his gripe departed from the script a little bit, instead asking why we bother to mark the exact moment of a “fresh Earth orbit” if we’re going to celebrate it at 24 different times in different time zones, despite all riding on the same Earth. This one is a good point, actually.
Odd that we mark the New Year's exact moment – a fresh Earth orbit – yet celebrate it one time zone after another, 24 times
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2012
The one upside of his tweeting the same take every year like clockwork is that salty online pundits have had time to finely hone their responses. Here are a few of this year’s:
True, nobody asked
— Gareth Spor (@GarethSpor) 1 January 2018
It doesn’t have any nutritional significance either, according to my restaurateur friend, but somehow he still manages to grasp that it’s an important cultural event that doesn’t need filtering through his professional lens and explaining as if everyone were a moron.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) 1 January 2018
So, just like your tweets.
— Christopher Sebela (@xtop) 1 January 2018
Anyway, if you would like to only celebrate events that align with Space Things, Tyson followed up this year’s tweet with a list of celebrations that are actually astronomically meaningful. Here they are, for your reference.
Meanwhile, the dates of Chinese New Year, Lent, Easter, Passover, Saturnalia, Christmas, & Ramadan, all reference astronomical events.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 1, 2018