Happy Leap Day!

[Chris Padilla]

I see we only have 1 creeker with a birthday today!

Eldon Berg (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?u=377)...who doesn't appear to post very much but I hope is a regular reader! :)

[Greg Cole]

He'd be a ripe 12.5 years old by my math?
Having a leap day birthday is almost like being aged in dog years..... ya are legal to buy beer at just over 5 years old!

Greg

[Jim Becker]

One of the painters working on the addition here has a 29 February birthday...

[Chris Padilla]

He'd be a ripe 12.5 years old by my math?
Having a leap day birthday is almost like being aged in dog years..... ya are legal to buy beer at just over 5 years old!

Greg

(2008-1948)/4 = 15?

[Greg Cole]

(2008-1948)/4 = 15?

That's what I get for doing math in my head. So I was off by 2 1/2 years... see I knew I ended my post with a question mark for good reason...LOLOL

Greg

[Chris Padilla]

This extra day is really killing you, eh, Greg?! ;) haha

[Rob Russell]

I bought a car today. Wonder if I can count every 4th year for warranty purposes ... :rolleyes:

[Lee Schierer]

If your employer pays you an annual salary does that mean you work for free today??

[Greg Cole]

This extra day is really killing you, eh, Greg?! ;) haha
Chris,
I'm not a golfer by any means, but I'll take my Mulligans for the month today.... or 4 stikes and I'm out? Wait I am a hockey fan, so I'll get it right in the 4th period. :D

Lee,
I tried that one with the boss this morning and got a "get the hell out of here" (his office). So I work for free once every 4 years. Geeze, so much for the ol' college try huh?

Greg - who is is going to start using his fingers for math again err still? :rolleyes:

[Randy Klein]

Just in case you wondered (from my dad)...


**************

What happens every 4 years, but NOT 25 times in a century?



That's right, Leap year! But Leap Year is not every 4 years; did you know that there are FOUR (4) rules to decide if a year is a leap year?



As you know, every 4 years, an extra day is tack onto February, to make up for the slight difference between the numbers of days in a solar year (365.24) and the calendar year (365). And an extra day every 4 years brings them nearly together. So, that is the first rule, every 4 years is a leap year, and to make it simpler, those years, by convention, are divisible by 4. So leap years were in: 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012,..., 2096, but what about 2100?



I said NEARLY together. But not quite. After all, .24 X 4 is only .96, not quite a whole day. So, to account for that smaller difference, we skip leap year every 100 years. That is our second rule. And by convention (where do they hold these things to vote on, anyway?), it is at the turn of the century (as you lay-people would call it), so, 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 were NOT LEAP YEARS (look it up in a perpetual calendar)! So, what about the year 2000? Read on.



Well, now we have over adjusted, by parts of a second per year. So, to get it aligned, there is a lesser known third rule: every 400 years a non-leap year becomes a leap year. And by convention, it is at the century mark. So, 1300, 1400, 1500, were not leap years, but 1600 was. 1700, 1800, 1900, were not, but 2000 was. And not because of the first rule, but because of the third rule !



Fourth rule? Well, if you followed the first 3 rules, the solar and calendar year will be out of whack by 3 WHOLE days after 10,000 years!! So to adjust for that, every 4000 years won't be a leap year. That is, the year 4000 (and 8000 for that matter), would be a leap year because of rule number 3, but won't be a leap year because of rule number 4.



I bet you really did not want to know all that!



Anyway, today 200,000 people in the USA and 4,000,000 in the world will have their Leap-Year birthday today, Feb 29th. A few will even turn both 10 years old AND 40!

[Ken Garlock]

Hi Randy, I think ou are off one decimal point when it comes to century years. IF the year can be divided by 400, it is not a leap year.