Abstract: When a friend asked me to calculate the probability of two full Moons in one month (blue Moons), I initially got similar results to John Stockton (September 2001 p19). He estimated that the chance of an ordinary February having no full Moon is more than 5%, and about 1.8% for a February in a leap year. It is obvious that if one lunar cycle is 29.5 days long, then – for months lasting 30 days – the chance of two full Moons in one month must be about 0.5 in 30(or 1.67%). For months of 31 days the probability is about 1.5 in 31 (or 4.84%). However, both my calculation and Stockton's are purely statistical and require full Moons to occur randomly. This cannot be the case, for they must be one lunar month apart.
Publication Year: 2002
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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