Leap Year

As you all know today is leap day. If you look at 2008 calendar, you will see that February has five Fridays. The month begins and ends on a Friday.

A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted at the end of February. A leap year consist of 366 day, whereas other years, called common years, have 365 days. A leap year is needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun.

Using a calendar with 365 days every year would result in a loss of 0.2422 days, or almost six hours per year. After 100 years, this calendar would be more than 24 days ahead of the season (tropical year), which is not accurate, It is desirable to align the calendar with the seasons and to make any difference as insignificant as possible.

By adding a leap year approximately every four years, the difference between the calendar ans the seasons can be reduced, and the calendar will align with the seasons much more accurately.

Are you born on leap year? If your birthday is every four years, how old are you now?