‘Time’ is a complex topic, certainly too complex to cover in under five hundred words on this page. But, we do have the space to discuss one of our efforts to measure Time, and our shortcomings in doing so, which will be amply demonstrated this Monday, February 29th, when we insert a ‘Leap Day’, putting off March for another 24 hours (logically, it should have been called ‘Postpone Day’, but after a few millennia, ‘Leap’ is probably going to stick).
The extra day is inserted to make up for the fact that the universe does things on its own time, but humans are not up to the task of measuring it. It takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds to circle once around the Sun, but the Gregorian Calendar we currently use has only 365 days of 24 hours each (one Earth rotation). Over the course of a century, we end up about 24 days out of sync. So, to compensate, every four years we sometimes throw in a day. ‘Sometimes’ is the key word, because there are more rules.
First, Leap Days are always inserted into the shortest month; nothing fancy there other than practicality. However, three conditions need to be met for a year to be a leap year: the year must be evenly divisible by four, but not if it divisible by 100 unless it can also be evenly divided by 400. Then it’s ok. Examples: 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, 2000 was, 2100 thru’ 2300 won’t be and 2400 will. Got it?
Julius Caesar introduced the leap year more than 2000 years ago with only one rule: any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year. However, this produced far too many leap years, and so was corrected with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Now we’re less wrong.
Of course, this applies only to those who use the Gregorian calendar. Several other calendars, such as those used by the Jewish and Islamic cultures, have a different set of rules to manage time discrepancies. However, nobody to date has come up with a nice, clean method to mathematically explain what Mother Nature already knows, which is simply that time is not something the universe is overly concerned about. If we feel compelled to try to define exactly what time it is right now, that’s our problem, not Hers.
2016 is one of those years where all the mathematics works out and we get a free extra day to curl up with a good book about Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII, or maybe to pause outside and take in the night sky. It’s a special day, and you never know what the universe might have planned, available from your own back yard.
