Comments on: Why we have leap days

By: Fodder « Voice of Truth

Fodder « Voice of Truth — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:25:41 +0000

[...] is a very good explanation of why we have leap days, by Phil Plait, author of the Bad Astronomy [...]

By: CuriosButNotGeorge

CuriosButNotGeorge — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:49:03 +0000

So, I understand -I think- about leap years and other calendar systems.
My question is related to this extraction of your text: “Every other unit of time we use (second, hour, week, month) is rather arbitrary.”
So, how was it decided (arbitrary) that a minute is a 60th of and hour, and a second a 60th of a minute but then they stopped there?
Why did the second not get divided using the sexagesimal system and they used the decimal system instead (10ths, 100ths, 1000ths of a second … and so on…?

By: Time flies when you’re having fun! | Fryeburg Academy Physics

Time flies when you’re having fun! | Fryeburg Academy Physics — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:50:40 +0000

[...] usually every four years, though it’s really quite a bit more complicated than that. Click this link for a quite detailed description of leap years that might make your head [...]

By: Take a flying leap second | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Take a flying leap second | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:18:24 +0000

[...] fraction of the year, and we add a day in every fours years to help even it out (though in reality it’s a LOT more complicated than that). But why do we add a single [...]

By: Happy New Year! « An Open System

Happy New Year! « An Open System — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:13:51 +0000

[...] Our modern calendar – the Gregorian calendar – was implemented by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. I think most people realize that our year counting begins at the accepted birth-year of Christ. How many people know that the calendar itself was aligned from the Julian system so that Easter would fall at a certain time of the year? To their credit, the First Council of Nicaea used the vernal equinox as their starting point for their arbitrary celebration of the resurrection. They decided that Christ’s resurrection should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox – which in the Julian calendar was March 21. How random is that? Their decision was based on the date rather than the actual equinox, and the two drifted apart over the centuries. Pope Gregory’s edicts adjusted the calendar by deleting 10 days so that March 21 lined back up with the equinox. They then justified this mathematically by making the already absurd leap-year algorithm, yet more absurd. [...]

By: Denis

Denis — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:50:59 +0000

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By: Sergey

Sergey — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:28:21 +0000

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