Is it coincidence that there are exactly 365.25 days in a year?

Question

If you think about it why is there not 365.23455435 days in a year, 365.25 it is very exact?

yeah it is exact otherwise e.g. January will slowly be moving either towards spring or Autumn.

Answer 1

Sorry, you're wrong -- it's NOT exactly 365.25 days per year. That's what Julius Ceasar thought, and why he thought 1 leap day every 4 years would keep the calendar in line -- he was incorrect (by about 11 minutes per year), and by 1200 or so the calendar had drifted more than 11 days.

Our actual year -- the time it takes the earth to make one full orbit around the sun with respect to the stars -- is 365.2425 (and that's rounded off, too) days. See the link below for more info.

Answer 2

Well, it's not exact. Every 400 years, we have 97 leap years, instead of 100. That takes the year to be 365.2425 days, which is still not exact, but close enough for the next few thousand years.

And yes, it is quite a remarkable coincidence that the extra bit is so close to the simple fraction 1/4 that we can have our leap years in so neat a pattern. Suppose it was almost exactly 365 3/11 instead, then the pattern would be much stranger - like, divide the year by 11, and it'll be a leap year if the remainder is 0, 4, or 7.

Answer 3

I would have to do more research on the matter, but I believe it is very, very, nearly but not exactly 365.25 days. If I'm not completely mistaken, it's more like 365.25001 (or something to that degree), so that every 10,000 years or so we have to either add or take away a day.

Addendum: Oops, I was way off... the exact number of days that the earth takes to make one revolution around the sun (i.e. one year ) is 365.2422 days or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46.08 seconds. Sorry folks... :)

See source below....

Answer 4

For all of you bashing this poster; check out all the articles from well-established newspapers and writers saying the same thing. - although the title here is not complete- I'm pretty sure the poster meant Bin Laden and Hitler pronounced dead on same day.(not simply that this day comes around every here) Coincidence that there will always be goof-offs wanting to be-little someone on a forum? I Know Not. -Lioness; to answer your question, *ADOLF Anderssen, German world champ chess (1851..66), dies at 60. *E Louis JJ Napoleon Bonaparte, crown prince, dies in battle at 23. (not the famous one) But the famous Naploean did die on May 5th(1821) Four days late to make this more interesting.

Answer 5

365 and a quarter is actually an approximation. I am not aware of the exact number but it slightly less than 365.25

This is the reason why there is no leap year on the turn of the century although there is still one on the turn of the millenium. This lines it all up a tiny bit closer.

Answer 6

Time is just something that is. It came with wahtever you believe created the universe. It goes on with or without us.

Humans needed a way to organize their lives so measurement of time was a creation of man. If we had better instrumentation when our ancestor cavemen walked the earth and invented the "year" , we would not have had to add the .25 days. A year- or the time it takes for the earth to make one revolution around the sun is not a year on any other planet.

We could have made each day 23 hours and 56 minutes or changed an hour and minute and second to make it a perfect number. The .25 was an adjustment for these shortcomings.

Answer 7

theres 1461 days in four years because of the leap year (365 x 4 +1) divided by 4 = 365.25

Answer 8

well the time in each year is different the earths revolution r just approximated because in some cases the time of the days shorten and that may shorten or longing our year........also on leap years when Feb.29 is here the year has an extra day that aloes the earth to rotate around the sun...........so the year is not exactly 365.25!!!!

Answer 9

ok let me ask you this. does it make a difference. whos to say that there are 365.25 days in a year. and not 730.5 days in a year. a year is just something we humans created to keep track of the things we do. nothing more. year after year you feel the same, month after month, your still doing the same thing, day after day its another day, another dollar.

Answer 10

it is not exact!! Every year the official clocks are "stopped" and brought into time to "real" time. That even goes for Big Ben