I have often wondered why we have a day that comes only once every four years. Not quite sure what to do with this extra day… I don’t really want to do anything productive or memorable as it only comes around every leap year, and IMHO if we are going to have an extra day… it should at least be a play day! Anyone have any special plans for it?
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
Well ** I ** get to go to the Doctor and then it will be may great pleasure to see the vampires in the lab.
I love the 29th.
" The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference."
Elie Wiesel
Yeah, I’m gonna close down voting on the TMHP. WOohoo.
–
“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
As far as I know, February 29 is there to correct the discrepancy between ‘our’ time and the real time the earth takes to go around the sun - Which is slightly less than ‘our’ year. Since we’re about 1/4 day off, we need a ‘correction day’ every 4 years.
Coldfire
"You know how complex women are"
** My ** great pleasure, darn it !
Ay *messed up on her new higher dose of Serzone * esha
" The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference."
Elie Wiesel
Yep, I think ill do something really original being that it is also Tuesday the 29th… I’ll get up, shower and go to work 
We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another
Purple,
(just a quick highjack)
I love your name. So much so that I now own a CD named “Purple Crack Whore”. Don’t know if they had this promotion in your area, but here PizzaSlut did this deal where you buy a certain pizza and you get a PIN number to go on cdnow dot com and make your own personal cd with 6 songs. You also get to name the cd, and I couldn’t think of a better name. . . think I am gonna go throw Purple Crack Whore in right now, its got some good stuff on it. (Gee I don’t owe you a royalty do I ?)
OK thats all . . .
Prolly not, as I haven’t registered the name as a trademark… altho if you want to send my fellow crackwhore and bookkeeper Candian Sue a mule for payment… we’ll call it even.
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
Here’s an actual answer , PCW 
:
The Earth completes one orbit around the Sun every 365 1/4 days; i.e., it revolves 365 times, then one more 1/4 turn before being in the same place in orbit.
Let’s pretent we didn’t have leap days/years. Each year we fall behind the same place in orbit for a given date by a little less than 1/4 degree, or six hours worth of orbit. The first three times it does this are dismissed, as there’s no easy way to adjust the calendar for fractional days. But the fourth time, we (the Earth and its inhabitants for the rest of my post) are a full day behind for the date.
E.g., On March 21, we should be near the Spring Equinox (SE) position in our orbit, give or take a few hours. The next three years we’re still close to the SE on March 21. But the fourth year, we’re a little less than a degree short of SE on March 21. We have to wait one more day, March 22, before we’re as near to the SE as we were four years before. Every four years, then, the Spring Equinox will occur later and later in the year. In just one century, the Spring Equinox would be April 16.
So we throw in a leap day every four years so that our defined seasons don’t migrate through the year.
To complicate things: The 365 1/4 day year is just a close estimate. Using leap years, every 400 years there are 3 too many days. This has the effect of moving the seasons back through the calendar. So Pope Gregory XIII decreed that every “century” year (years divisible by 100) except every 4th one (years divisible by 400) will not be leap years. So, 1600 AD was a leap year, 1700, 1800, and 1900 weren’t, 2000 is, 2100, 2200, and 2300 won’t be, etc.
Gregory decreed that October 4, 1582 would be followed by October 15, 1582 to make up for the ten days that the calendar had fallen behind. At first, only Catholics followed the Gregorian calendar. Then over the next 3 1/2 centuries, others switched to it: Germany & The Netherlands (1698), England & its colonies (1752), Russia (1918). The latter is why the October Revolution was celebrated in November: it occurred in October, Julian calendar or November, Gregorian calendar.
A final confusion: The Gregorian calendar will be off by 1 day every 4000 years, moving the seasons backward. So again, one leap day will have to be omitted every 4000 years, presumably in the year 4000 AD.
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
Don’t be surprised tomorrow if your computers, VCRs and cheap wristwatches try to tell you it’s March 1st: http://cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/02/28/leapyear.y2k.idg/index.html
This will probably cause no more disruption than Y2K did, though.
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
I was wondering about that, Jab1.
“If you drive an automobile, please drive carefully–because I walk in my sleep.”–Victor Borge
Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of me starting my first job as a lawyer sixteen years ago.
-Melin
Who is NOT Straight Dope Staff
Siamese attack puppet – California
Congrats Melin… many wishes for many many more leaps for you!
It means I get an extra day to be 29.
See, my memory is going already; I forgot to click “Show Signature”.
Rilchiam, who turns 30 on Thursday the 2nd of March. Tick…tick…tick…
jab1 is correct,
A point in every direction is like no point at all
AWB is on target. 2/28/4000 is followed by 3/1/4000, being the exception to the exception to the exception to the exception to the rule. (28 days except in years divisible by 4, except years divisible by 100, except years divisible by 400, except years divisible by 4000)
There was a tv huckster on the West Coast named Al “I’ll paint any car for $105!” Shieb, who died in 1992 on Feb. 29. The unusual thing was that Feb. 29 was also his birthday. Isn’t that a 1,462-to-1 chance?
Your deep sea diving suit is ready, me brave lad.
Yo, purple crackhead a year is 365.246538… daze which is rounded to 365.25 4 x .25 is 1 so every 4 years we make up for the day. So leap years are devisible by 4, and 40, and (in this year) 400, and 4,000 ect… so the next year with three zeros that will be a leap year is 4,000. So in the year 4,000 there will be a tombstone that says, “Here lies Purple Crackhead”
R.I.P. Mike
Well, nobody could use the computers at work today because they didn’t recognize 2/29/00 as a valid date. Anybody else have this problem?
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.