Please explain why we have 366 days in a Leap year?

Question

Why should only February have 29 days in the Leap year. Who calculated and came to this conclusion? Geographers have tried to explain a quater day each year to make a full day in the Leap year, but do we see or pass through a quater day?

Answer 1

Because based on the science a full circulation around the sun exist in 365.244 days. So every four years we need another day as a catch up.

After looking it up I was alittle off. Look below.

Answer 2

Leap Year 366 Days

Answer 3

366 Days In A Year

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Please explain why we have 366 days in a Leap year?
Why should only February have 29 days in the Leap year. Who calculated and came to this conclusion? Geographers have tried to explain a quater day each year to make a full day in the Leap year, but do we see or pass through a quater day?

Answer 5

In short, the reason is to preserve the alignment of dates on the
calendar with the seasons of the year.

As the Earth revolves around the Sun, it rotates on its axis.
When it has made exactly one orbit around the Sun, it has made
366.2422 rotations on its axis. One of those rotations is accounted for by its revolving about the Sun. (Think of a planet like Mercury for which one side always faces the Sun. After one revolution, it has made one rotation, but the Sun has never set on one side of Mercury, and never risen on the other.) That means that 365.2422 days have elapsed. An ordinary year contains 365 days, not 365.2422 days.
Since .2422 is about 1/4, every four years we have fallen behind by almost a full day. If we didn't do anything about this, after 700
years we would have Summer in January and Winter in July! As a result, we insert an extra day, 29 February, to make a Leap Year.

This arrangement results in what is called the Julian Calendar,
supposedly invented by Julius Caesar (more likely just decreed by him). The average year is 365.25 days under this calendar.

Of course .2422 is not exactly 1/4, so we will be drifting a little,
even with Leap Years. As a result, every year divisible by 100 is
declared *not* to be a leap year. 1900 was not a leap year under this calendar. That means that the average year is 365.24 days, still a little off. To be even more accurate, every year divisible by 400 is declared to be a leap year, after all! Thus 2000 will be a leap year.
This system is called the Gregorian calendar, since it was established by order of Pope Gregory in 1582. This was only adopted in English-speaking countries in 1752, however, to be made retroactive. In the Gregorian calendar, the average year is 365.2425, which is off only 3 days every 10000 years. No doubt someone will make more rules to fix even that slight deviation sometime in the future.

If you think this is complicated, you should see how the date of
Easter is calculated!

Resource: http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/53917.html

Answer 6

Long story short, the Romans tried to create an absurd calendar which we unfortunately still use. Different months have different number of days, the names are crazy ("DEC" means 10 yet December is the 12th month?), and, as you mentioned, the leap year.

The Mayans had a much more logical calendar, but since they weren't white, we don't use it. It has 13 months (for the 13 annual full moons) of 28 days for 364 days and a day of rest.

Answer 7

we have 365 days and 6 hours every year, Every forth year we
it adds up to 24 hours thus leap year
we do not notice this change, Feb has the least days therefore Feb wins, but its wasn't done many many many years ago we would have winter in June and Christmas would be summer. Just think about it.

Answer 8

It boils down to the length of a day...its not 24 hours, but 23 hours and 56 minutes. Add that up over four years and what you end up with is a calendar that is off one day. So they add a day to February to make it balance out.

This is what happens when you base your calendar on a religious system rather than a scientific one. The Mayan calendar is more advanced and accurate than the one we use today.

Answer 9

I really don['t get your question. We have 366 days in a leap year because there is one extra day in February

Answer 10

wow isnt this a stupid question and come under general knowledge?????

the quarter day accumalates over the four years. if we took that quarter day into the account every year, our cycle of the 24 hours would be messed up cuz we would have to add 6 more hours per year.

COMMON SENSE if you know about the quarter day thing.