Today is the ever-so-special February 29th–the “leap day”–that happens only once every four years. Folks who are born on this day have to suffer from premature aging and an expected lifespan that is far shorter than the national average, although the benefits are that they get to graduate when they’re only age 4 and can retire at age 16.

Personally, I appreciate February 29th because it represents another four years that we’ve gone without seeing the end of the world, and we can all hope and pray that we’ll make it to February 29, 2012 as well.

The technicalities of the leap year are interesting in that they represent how difficult it is to precisely equate the calendar with the true rotation of the earth. The scientists have figured out that a single orbit of the earth around the sun takes 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds. This is just shy of 365 days and 6 hours, aka 365.25 days. Thus, the leap year is really a means of correcting our slightly-flawed calendar system so that we can stay somewhat on tap with when the real winter solstice is by adding a day every four years, which is any year divisible by four.
However, it gets more confusing because of that pesky little fact that the rotation is slightly less than 365.25 days, and so that’s why there is not a leap year during any years divisible by 100, unless the year is divisible by 400. That’s why, in the year 2000, we had a leap year, but there wasn’t a leap year in the year 1900, and there won’t be a leap year in the year 2100.

It’s actually because of this moving around with leap years and stuff why solstices and equinoxes are never on the same day each year. The scientists have figured out that the winter solstice in 1903 was December 23rd, but in 2003 it was December 22nd, and in 2096 it will be December 20th–that particular winter solstice in the year 2096 will be the earliest winter solstice since the seventeenth century, and that 1903 winter solstice was the latest winter solstice since the sixteenth century (and there won’t be another winter solstice that late until the early 2300s).

Anyway, it’s quite mind-boggling, but nevertheless, February 29th is only something that happens once every four years. Plus, it’s the sixtieth day of 2008, meaning that we’re already about 16% through the year!

Since this is the first leap year that I’ve had to blog on (my blog did not exist in February 2004), I thought I’d take the opportunity to make mention of the leap year. If you want more info about this man-made phenomenon, I’d advise that you check out Wikipedia.

Tags: 2008, date, earth, February 29, leap year, rotation, solstice, Wikipedia