There is no scientific basis for the seven-day week — unlike days, months, and years, which are tied to the Earth's rotation, the moon's cycle, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun — the week appears to come entirely from ancient Mesopotamian religious tradition, in a piece of structure that has organized the human workforce for roughly 4,000 years

There is no scientific basis for the seven-day week — unlike days, months, and years, which are tied to the Earth's rotation, the moon's cycle, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun — the week appears to come entirely from ancient Mesopotamian religious tradition, in a piece of structure that has organized the human workforce for roughly 4,000 years

Open a calendar. Notice that you do not need a telescope, a clock, or an almanac to verify what a day is — the sun rises, the sun sets, and a day has elapsed. The same is roughly true of a month and a year. A lunar month is what you can see in the sky if you watch the moon’s phases for 29.5 days. A year is what the sun does if you watch it move along the horizon for 365 days. Each of these units corresponds to a physical phenomenon that any huma…