Leap Year


Obviously, in the year 2024 we had the fortune of another day added to the yearly calendar in February.  Leap Year is obviously due to the fact that the number of earth’s daily revolutions does not fit evenly into the time frame the planet takes to fully orbit the sun.  We all know that there are 365 days in the year, but to be exact it’s somewhere around 365.2425… days as the gravity of the moon continually influences the earth's daily rotation and yearly orbit durations.

Therefore, once every four years, we add an extra day to the Julian calendar to make up for the remainder.  If the extra day had not been added every four years over the past 2000 years, we would currently be between 16 and 17 months ahead on the calendar and needless to say our agricultural and seasonal rhythms would be out of sync.

Even under the current system, an extra day every four years creates an over-allowance of approximately 0.03124 days or 45 minutes per four years.  However, believe it or not, this too is accounted for in the bookwork!  A little-known rule around Leap Year -- years that are divisible by 100 are skipped (no Feb. 29th) unless they’re also divisible by 400.  In which case, the year 2100 will not have a Feb 29th, but the year 2000 did!

Over the course of 1000 years, this last adjustment brings the accuracy to within 4.5 hours too short versus being roughly 8 days too long.  Amazingly close for a 1000-year time span!

https://www.capitalpress.com/ag_sectors/rurallife/how-leap-year-saved-agriculture-from-chaos/article_bcb1bd80-54db-11ea-94c2-63452c3f6824.html

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