LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are writers, not calculators. They produce fluent prose, but are structurally weak at precise astronomical and arithmetic computation.
節
Solar terms are astronomy, not the calendar
The year pillar changes at ipchun, not Jan 1; the month pillar changes at the 24 solar terms. These moments are fixed by the sun's ecliptic longitude and differ to the minute each year. Approximating them breaks the month pillar on boundary dates.
朔
Lunar–solar conversion has no formula
Lunar month lengths and leap months are set by actual new moons and solar terms — astronomical events with no closed formula, requiring precise tables. LLMs can't reproduce them reliably.
算
The day pillar is cumulative arithmetic
The day pillar is the total days since an epoch, mod 60. Faking tens of thousands of days of integer math “in your head” means a single day's error flips the entire day pillar.
信
Confidently wrong
An LLM states a wrong ganji as fluently as a right one and never checks its own work — producing results that look authoritative but are wrong.