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RE: [OM] Leap Year Surprises

Subject: RE: [OM] Leap Year Surprises
From: "Ron Spolarich" <caesar2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 08:38:20 -0500
Who needs OM content!  Thanks for the science lesson.  My wife had asked me
why we had leap years and as the "grand wizard of all knowledge" <g>, I was
stymied!

RonS

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
> Steven_Read@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 3:25 PM
> To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [OM] Leap Year Surprises
>
>
>
>
> You might want to keep this for her (from
> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000229.html).  Then you can
> tease her about
> waiting 400 years for her next birthday.
>
> 2000 February 29
> Even as leap days go, today is a remarkable one. In 46 BC, Julius
> Caesar, ...
> created a calendar system that added one leap day every four
> years. Acting on
> advice by Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, Caesar did this to
> make up for the
> fact that the Earth's year is slightly more than 365 days. In
> other words, the
> time it takes for the Earth to circle the Sun is slightly more
> than the time it
> takes for the Earth to rotate 365 times (with respect to the Sun
> -- actually we
> now know this takes about 365.24219 rotations). So, if calendar
> years contained
> 365 days they would drift from the actual year by about 1 day
> every 4 years.
> Eventually July (named posthumously for Julius Caesar himself) would occur
> during the northern hemisphere winter! By adopting a leap year
> with an extra day
> every four years, the calendar year would drift much less. This
> Julian Calendar
> system was used until the year 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII added
> that leap days
> should not occur in years ending in "00" except if divisible by
> 400, providing
> further fine-tuning. This Gregorian Calendar system is the one in
> common use
> today. Therefore, even though this year 2000 ends in "00", it
> remains a leap
> year, and today is the added leap day. That makes today the first
> leap day for a
> centurial year since year 1600 and the second such leap day of
> the Gregorian
> Calendar.
>
> Mike Butler wrote:
> > Sure enough, by 7:30 PM I had a new baby girl on my hands, and
> a "Leapling"
> > at that.  Nicole is 8lbs 1oz (3.72Kg), 19.5" (495mm)lg, not bad for
> > three weeks early!
>
>
>
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