Leap year?

Question

What is the story behind leap year and is 2007 considered a leap year? From what I have heard it happens every four years, but I can't remember when the last leap year was. I know it deals with the month of February. How many days in February does it have to be to be considered a leap year? There are 29 days this year in the month of February. What is special about leap year? I also know that during a leap year, there are 365 1/4 days in the whole year.

Answer 1

You've got things a little mixed up.

Each year is 365 1/4 days long, which is why we need a leap year every four years--because we've actually used an extra day during that time and our calendars are 'behind'.

February usually has 28 days. This year it only has 28 days. Next year is our leap year. What calendar are you looking at that it has 29 days for February?

Our last leap year was 2004. The next one will be next year. It's always a year that is divisible by 4.

Now, because adding this extra year actually ends up giving us more days in the long run (because it's not EXACTLY 365 1/4 days per year), they decided that any year ending in 00 would only be a leap year if it could also have to be divisible by 400.

You can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year

Answer 2

Cant be a leap year because 2007 is not divisible by 4. It needs to be an even number and divisible by 4. The last leap year was 2004 and the next one will be 2008. And there are only 28 days in February this year proving that it is not a leap year.

A leap year is used to make up the difference as each year is actally 365.25 days so every 4 years, a extra day is needed to keep things in balance.

Answer 3

Leap years are years with an extra day (February 29); this happens almost every four years. Generally , leap years are divisible by four, but century years are special, they must also be divisible by 400. The year 2000 was a leap year. The years 2001, 2002, and 2003 are not.

more:
In order to get a closer approximation, it was decided to have a leap day 97 years out of 400 rather than once every 4 years. To implement the model, it was provided that years divisible by 100 would be leap years only if they were divisible by 400 as well. [1] [2] So, in the last millennium, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. In this millennium, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be. The years that are divisible by 100 but not 400 are known as "exceptional common years". By this rule, the average number of days per year will be 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400 = 365.2425.

Answer 4

2007 is not a leap year, 2008 is, 2004 was the last leap year, they come every 4 years with one exception. Every hundred years (25 4s) is not a leap year. The exception to this is that every thousand years (250 4s) is a leap year. There are 365 1/4 days per year, every year (well, not quite, which explains the two exceptions above). A leap year has 366 days, vs a non-leap year which has 365. February is where the extra day is inserted - it has 28 days in a non-leap year and 29 days in a leap year.

Answer 5

A Leap Year doesn't happen every year, a Leap Year happens once every 4 years. The idea of a Leap year is to catch up with the calendar, because a day is not exactly 24 hours, a day is 24 hours and 2 minutes (or something close to that)

Answer 6

2007 is not a leap year, it'll have 28 days in February. The more recent lap year was 2004, therefore, the next one is going to be 2008. As you said, it happen each 4 years. In normal years february has 28 days and in leap years, 29.

Each year there are 365 1/4 days; that's why, each 4 years, a complete day is added to the year (1/4 * 4) to syncronize the traslation movement of the earth.

Answer 7

The next leap year is Feb. 2008. The next one after that will be Feb 2012. Feb. usually has 28 days. On leap year it has 29.That 1/4 day that is not counted every year is made up on leap year which is every four years. 4x1/4=1.

Answer 8

The Rule

According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.

Background

The Gregorian calendar year is intended to be of the same length as the cycle of the seasons. However, the cycle of the seasons, technically known as the tropical year, is approximately 365.2422 days. Since a calendar year consists of an integral number of whole days, a calendar year cannot exactly match the tropical year. If the calendar year always consisted of 365 days, it would be short of the tropical year by about 0.2422 days every year. Over a century, the calendar and the seasons would depart by about 24 days, so that the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere would shift from March 20 to April 13.

To synchronize the calendar and tropical years, leap days are periodically added to the calendar, forming leap years. If a leap day is added every fourth year, the average length of the calendar year is 365.25 days. This was the basis of the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. In this case the calendar year is longer than the tropical year by about 0.0078 days. Over a century this difference accumulates to a little over three quarters of a day. From the time of Julius Caesar to thesixteenth century A.D., the beginning of spring shifted from March 23 to March 11.

When Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the calendar was shifted to make the beginning of spring fall on March 21 and a new system of leap days was introduced. Instead of intercalating a leap day every fourth year, 97 leap days would be introduced every 400 years, according to the rule given above. Thus, the average Gregorian calendar year is 365.2425 days in length. This agrees to within a half a minute of the length of the tropical year. It will take about 3300 years before the Gregorian calendar is as much as one day out of step with the seasons.

Answer 9

See wikipedia article. There is 1 extra day in a leap year, on Feb 29. It occurs every 4 years, but there are other rules to do with centuries - see article.

Traditionally, a woman can ask a man to marry her in a leap year.

Answer 10

2007 is not a leap year, but next year will be since 2000 was a leap year, add 4 years.........2000, 2004, 2008.....and so on.