Not another paradoxical situation...

[tompilk]

How can there be 365.3 days in a year if it begins at 12.00 on 31st December each time? the same number of days are in every year, so is this what leap years are for? but .3*4 = 1.2 extra days... 
Anyone care to explain?
Tom

[prometheus]

By adding extra days every once and a while. It is called 29 february.

It is not very strange that the time the earth takes to rotate around its axis doesn't fit precicely into the time it takes the earth to rotate around the sun. It would be very strange it it was exactly 350 days and not a second more.

[tompilk]

ah, i just read up that there are 365.2425 in a year... so a quarter*4 for the leap year would make 365... all makes sense!
when we had an extra second at the beginning of 2006, was that the 7.5*10to the-3 additional?
Tom

[prometheus]

Yes, I remembered that second. I find it a bit strange. I mean, what is a second to a day? Maybe adding a day every four years is actually very accurate.

[Floristan]

...from www.timeanddate.com:

In the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar used by most modern countries, the following rules decides which years are leap years:

Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year.
But every year divisible by 100 is NOT a leap year -- unless the year is also divisible by 400, then it is still a leap year.

This means that year 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 2400 are leap years.

[cziffra]

...from www.timeanddate.com:

unless it's a 10000 year

[henrah]

Are the Olympics set in years that are leap years? We have it in 2012, and if 2000 is a leap year that means they are.

Hhmm, never knew that before...