20-01-2020, 08:36 PM
1
Leap Year
I expect some of the clever clogs will know this, but I have only just learned the reason we have Leap Years.
An extra day has to be added to February because, while we have 365 days in our calendar, the Earth takes longer than that - 365 days and 1/4 (quarter) in fact - to fully rotate around our sun.
Those quarter days need to be accounted for somewhere so they are added up every four years to give one full extra day.
Without this leap year, we'd actually lose 6 hours every year , and after 100 years our calendar would be askew by nearly 24 days.
Over several hundred years, this means we could be enjoying summer in the middle of February, as the seasons created by the Earth's rotation would be out of sync with our monthly calendar.
But this doesn't completely solve the problem, and that is why every so often scientists have to pick a year to add an extra second to make everything add up.
The last Leap Second took place in June 2015.
*
So there you go. I shall now step off my soap box and try to remember what I have just learnt.
20-01-2020, 09:03 PM
2
Re: Leap Year
The extra day was introduced by Julius Caesar as although his calendar was fairly accurate, the Romans got the calculations of the solar year slightly out and by Pope Gregory's time in the 16th century, the Julian Calendar was a whole ten days out. Pope Gregory re-set the calendar by removing the ten days starting again with a more accurate calculation of the solar year. Removing the ten days from the calendar caused widespread panic, because the uneducated population of the time thought that they were physical days that had been removed.Did you also know that originally there were only ten months of thirty days each?
20-01-2020, 09:43 PM
5
Re: Leap Year
Originally Posted by The Artful Todger
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Don't forget leap seconds! Needed to allow UTC which is derived from a caesium based atomic clock to accurately track the less precise solar time that tends to wander.
But I didn't forget, Todger.
I said -
" But this doesn't completely solve the problem, and that is why every so often scientists have to pick a year to add an extra second to make everything add up.
The last Leap Second took place in June 2015."
20-01-2020, 09:45 PM
6
Re: Leap Year
Originally Posted by Judd
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The extra day was introduced by Julius Caesar as although his calendar was fairly accurate, the Romans got the calculations of the solar year slightly out and by Pope Gregory's time in the 16th century, the Julian Calendar was a whole ten days out. Pope Gregory re-set the calendar by removing the ten days starting again with a more accurate calculation of the solar year. Removing the ten days from the calendar caused widespread panic, because the uneducated population of the time thought that they were physical days that had been removed.Did you also know that originally there were only ten months of thirty days each?
I might have known you would know all about it Judsy.
Blinkin' walking encyclopedia this man is!
20-01-2020, 09:47 PM
7
Re: Leap Year
Originally Posted by Mags
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Wow! Thanks for the explanation Mups, I didn’t know that and you have explained it a lot clearer than reading it in a book. 👍Don’t throw your soapbox away! 😉
Thank you Mags.
I won't throw it away yet, just incase I find something else to spout about.
21-01-2020, 12:17 PM
10
Re: Leap Year
Originally Posted by Mups
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Thank you Mags. I won't throw it away yet, just incase I find something else to spout about.
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