bored and nothing better to do...

i did something stoopid in the toilet this morning AGAIN... well almost... i almost put facial soap on my TOOTHBRUSH... imagine if i already put it on my toothbrush.... EEEWWW.... i don't know what else will i do in the toilet in my lack of sleep condition...


anyways today is 29th february... a date that pops up every once in four years, just like the world cup... hahaha... i actually search the net for why the 29 days in february in every 4 years... here is what i found...




"The leap year is a contrivance so that the calendar year (usually 365 days) doesn't get too far away from the solar (astronomical) year. You say: huh? Well, the astronomical year – the time it takes the earth to go exactly once around the sun – is not precisely 365 days. The ancients estimated it as 365¼ days. That wasn't bad as calculations go; it's actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.



Now, you may think that crummy little fraction (almost 6 hours or 1/4 of a day) doesn't matter much. But every four years, the calendar would lose a full day against the seasonal year. Christmas (Dec. 25) would start to come a little earlier each year. After about 20 years it would come before the winter solstice; after 200 years or so, Christmas would come in the autumn (since the seasons are tied to the astronomical year, because they depend on the earth's slant relative to the sun) . . . and then in summer . . . and . . .



To prevent this drift between the calendar year and the astronomical (seasonal) year, we add one extra day every four years. Thus, over the four year period, we have 1461 days, not 1460, for an average of 365.25 days per year. That pretty much makes it come out right.



This innovation was imposed in the year 709 AUC (ab urbe condita, after the founding of the city), when Julius Caesar regulated the calendar. Nowadays, we refer to it as 45 BC. The Nicaean Council in 325 AD adopted that calendar for Christendom.



But it still wasn't precisely right. As noted above, the astronomical year isn't 365 days 6 hours (365.25 days), it's 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds (365.2422 days). So as the calendar went along with its jolly add-a-day-every-four-years pattern, it gained about 11 minutes 14 seconds every year. After every 128 years, that was a full day. Note it's going the other direction – Christmas would fall LATER in the season each year."


the story is so long, it involves the pope, the julian calendar, the gregorian calendar and some MATHS and i don't get some of it so I cut it short...


"So the rule is:


Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year (adds an extra day to February),


EXCEPT the last year of each century, such as 1900, which is NOT a leap year . . .


EXCEPT when the number of the century is a multiple of 4, such as 2000, which IS a leap year . . .


EXCEPT the year 4000 and its later multiples (8000, 12000, etc) which are NOT leap years."


u get it?? i only grasp a bit... its all about the earth orbiting around sun and all... too cheem... brain rust already... :D :D



there.. i learn something new today... interesting fact there... NOW i know why this leap year thing happen... :D :D


okie done.


t.t.f.n.

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