It's Leap Year Day!
February 29, 2012--it's Leap Year Day! For those of you who have had your heads buried in the sand for most of your adult life: a leap year is a year containing one additional day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the seasons. The astronomical events that cause our seasons don't happen in a precise whole number of days, so a calendar that had the same number of days every year
would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to
track. Early astronomers wanted the spring equinox to stay as close as possible to March 21st each year, so the concept of a leap day (or month, in some calendars) was proposed and instituted.
It's amazing to think that functional calendars, including leap days, or even leap months, have been used for more than 2000 years. Modern calendars have evolved over time; at first every country instituted its own form of calendar, but over the centuries, most countries have gradually come to a consensus, so that now, in the twenty-first century, the Gregorian calender is used throughout most of the world. In the Gregorian calendar, the month of February has 29 days in a leap year, instead of the usual 28, so the year lasts 366 days instead of the usual 365.
The astronomers who first came up with the concept of the calendar did so without computers or any other electronic devises. Just think about the thought processes and heated discussions that must have occurred! Think of the math involved! And, how in the world did a few learned astronomers convince even one world leader to go along with such an innovative idea? How did they ever manage to agree on the concept of using a leap year to synchronize the calendar with the actual length of earth's orbit around the sun? For that matter, how did they ever figure out how to determine the length of a year, when most people considered the earth to be the flat center of the universe, with all heavenly bodies, including the sun, rotating around it?
Ancient astronomers were considered to be the wisest men of their time--and rightly so. (Think of the Wise Men who followed a star to find the baby Jesus.) We tend to under-estimate the abilities of people who lived so long ago. We forget that someone had to plan and implement basic, revolutionary ideas that led to calendars, bridges and pyramids, monetary systems, written alphabets, the printing press...the list could go on and on. I'm thankful for those people who saw the need for a functional calendar, who were able to come up with such a complicated, yet simple, means of measuring the passing seasons.
Now, I wonder if I can figure out a meaningful way to pass on the concept of Leap Year to my four- and five-year-old preschoolers... No, I doubt it. But we'll touch on the subject anyway. Even the thought of celebrating a birthday only once in four years will mean something to some of them.
It will be 1,460 days until the next February 29th rolls around. I hope you enjoy this day!
It's amazing to think that functional calendars, including leap days, or even leap months, have been used for more than 2000 years. Modern calendars have evolved over time; at first every country instituted its own form of calendar, but over the centuries, most countries have gradually come to a consensus, so that now, in the twenty-first century, the Gregorian calender is used throughout most of the world. In the Gregorian calendar, the month of February has 29 days in a leap year, instead of the usual 28, so the year lasts 366 days instead of the usual 365.
The astronomers who first came up with the concept of the calendar did so without computers or any other electronic devises. Just think about the thought processes and heated discussions that must have occurred! Think of the math involved! And, how in the world did a few learned astronomers convince even one world leader to go along with such an innovative idea? How did they ever manage to agree on the concept of using a leap year to synchronize the calendar with the actual length of earth's orbit around the sun? For that matter, how did they ever figure out how to determine the length of a year, when most people considered the earth to be the flat center of the universe, with all heavenly bodies, including the sun, rotating around it?
Ancient astronomers were considered to be the wisest men of their time--and rightly so. (Think of the Wise Men who followed a star to find the baby Jesus.) We tend to under-estimate the abilities of people who lived so long ago. We forget that someone had to plan and implement basic, revolutionary ideas that led to calendars, bridges and pyramids, monetary systems, written alphabets, the printing press...the list could go on and on. I'm thankful for those people who saw the need for a functional calendar, who were able to come up with such a complicated, yet simple, means of measuring the passing seasons.
Now, I wonder if I can figure out a meaningful way to pass on the concept of Leap Year to my four- and five-year-old preschoolers... No, I doubt it. But we'll touch on the subject anyway. Even the thought of celebrating a birthday only once in four years will mean something to some of them.
It will be 1,460 days until the next February 29th rolls around. I hope you enjoy this day!
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