All I wanted to do is research Leap Day and Leap Year and instead I found some mathematical formula on how to calculate Leap Years. I did not want to know that in the Gregorian calendar (more about that in another paragraph) three criteria must be met to be a Leap Year:
1. The year is evenly divisible by 4
2. If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
The above concept was lost on me when a number larger than one hundred was part of the calculation. Prior to that, I was engaged.
For sake of this posting, let us all agree that 2012 is a Lear Year.
I was aware of the existence of calendars with different names but, not knowing the details, I thought it would be enlightening to explore just what the differences are. I discovered that the Julian Calendar came first. The Julian Calendar was the accepted form of chronological dating - Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar to the "world" in 46 BC - and it continued to be the officially recognized civil calendar in some countries into the twentieth century. More than fifteen hundred years after the inception of the Julian Calendar, Pope Gregory (after whom the Gregorian Calendar was named) introduced the Gregorian Calendar to the world, by a Papal decree, on February 24, 1582. Also called the Western Calendar and the Christian Calendar, it is the internationally accepted civil calendar.
A Leap Year is a year consisting of 366 days instead of the common year's 365 days. During a Leap Year, an extra day - a Leap Day (also know as an intercalary day) is added to our Gregorian Calendar. We need a Leap Year for semi-scientific reasons. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days - or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) - to circle once around the Sun.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29th nearly eery 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
Well, I don't see the problem with removing Leap Years from our Gregorian calendars. First of all, every hundred years would bring a whole new set of humans who wouldn't miss those lost 24 days anyway, and, secondly, there must be a computer software-designer somewhere who can design a program to adjust for this.
I'm headed downstairs to discuss this with Capt. SO.
Happy Leap Day.
Ancora imparo
