On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:35 PM, <a href="mailto:kennethgmiller@juno.com">kennethgmiller@juno.com</a> <<a href="mailto:kennethgmiller@juno.com">kennethgmiller@juno.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
R' Saul Newman asked:<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d">> it there are 3 different simanim out of 14 possible year<br>
> combinations that sunday pesach can fall on [ 1 meubar, 2<br>
> pshutim], why is the frequency so rare? what dchiah causes<br>
> these combinations to be rare?<br>
<br>
</div>R' Simon Montagu answered:<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d">> All other things being equal, you would expect Pesah to be<br>
> on any day of the week one year in 7, and it's on Sunday<br>
> about 1 year in 9 on average, so it's not really so rare,<br>
> it just seems that way because other days are more common.<br>
<br>
</div>Perfect answer, except for the "1 in 9" part, which will vary wildly depending on which years one is looking at. Looking at the years 2001-09, the ratio is 1 in 3; for 2010-24 it is only 1 in 15; for 2001-49 it is the expected 1 in 7.<br>
</blockquote></div><br>Yes indeed, but I was taking the long view :) The fixed calendar recurs on a cycle of 689472 years, and within this cycle Pesah is on Sunday in 75657 years.<br><br>I don't know if there's any simple answer to the question why the frequency varies so much in the short term.<br>
<br>Hodesh Tov!<br>