Mathematician reveals the ‘secret’ 5.7 million year pattern of Easter

‘If they’d just written down what day they crucified the bloke on, it all would have been easier wouldn’t it?’ says Dr Stephen Woodcock of the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Woodcock told Australia’s The Age this year that the ‘cycle’ of Easter repeats only once every 5.7 million years.

This year, Easter Sunday is April 1, next year, it’s April 21, and in 2020, it’ll be April 12: a pattern which will resurface in 5.7 million years’ time.

The reason it’s so complicated is that it is dictated by two separate cycles; the cycle of the moon, and the calendar.

MOST POPULAR TODAY ON YAHOO

• Teacher beaten to a pulp by ‘monstrous’ teenage ex-pupil speaks out for first time about five-year sentence

• Woman crushed when pallet of bricks falls from crane in horror accident

• Scientists discover new ‘shock absorber’ organ that spans the entire human body

• Couple with ‘allergy to modern life’ forced to leave Hobbit-style mud hut because they didn’t get planning permission

• Dog owners warned to keep pets away from mud as deadly disease spreads across Britain

Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the March equinox.

Full moons rise on a cycle repeating every 19 years. The calendar – due to complicated stuff like Leap Years – repeats every 400 years.

Dr Woodcock told The Age, ‘It’s’s mind-bendingly long. Throw in some other periodic adjustments to account for the quirks of both our calendars and astronomical movements and the end result is a pattern of Easter dates which only fully repeats itself after exactly 5.7 million years.’