I once read a story in which a human gave an extraterrestrial visitor a calendar to examine and they were confused as to all the inconsistency. I then wondered how they would react if we gave them a Malaysian wall calendar instead:
- Four calendars (Gregorian, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu)
- Three scripts (Latin, Chinese, Tamil)
- Two solar (Gregorian, Hindu), neither synced with the other, with varying month lengths (29-32 for the Hindu, but at least months follow solar longitudes properly; Gregorian doesn't really follow anything)
- Two lunar (Chinese, Islamic), also offsync (Chinese starts months on new moon, Islamic on first visible crescent) and Chinese has leap months while Islamic doesn't.
- Weekday names in four languages (English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil)
It'd certainly be a puzzle for our hypothetical alien.
- Four calendars (Gregorian, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu)
- Three scripts (Latin, Chinese, Tamil)
- Two solar (Gregorian, Hindu), neither synced with the other, with varying month lengths (29-32 for the Hindu, but at least months follow solar longitudes properly; Gregorian doesn't really follow anything)
- Two lunar (Chinese, Islamic), also offsync (Chinese starts months on new moon, Islamic on first visible crescent) and Chinese has leap months while Islamic doesn't.
- Weekday names in four languages (English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil)
It'd certainly be a puzzle for our hypothetical alien.