How many min. and seconds are there in five years?

Question

I just need to know.

Answer 1

There are two cases.
Case 1: There is only 1 leap year during this time.
That means 4 of the years have 365 days, and one of them has 366 days.
4*365 + 366 = 1,826 days
There are 24 hours in one day
1826*24 = 43,824 hours
There are 60 minutes in one hour.
43824*60 = 2,629,440 minutes.
There are 60 seconds in one hour.
2629440*60 = 157,766,400 seconds.

Case 2: There are two leap years during that 5 year period.
Three of the years have 365 days and two of the years have 366 days
3*365 + 2*366 = 1,827 days
Repeat the above calculations to find the number of minutes and seconds.

Answer 2

I'll use 365.2425 for days in a "sidereal year". (See the webpage below.)

365.2425 days/year x (24 hours/1 day) x (60 minutes/1 hour) = 525,949.2 minutes in a year.

525,949.2 minutes/year x 5 years = 2,629,746 minutes in 5 years.

And that would be:

2,629,746 minutes x (60 seconds/minute) = 157,784,760 seconds in 5 years.

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When evaluating which of our two answers to choose, please consider the following:

Is a "year" defined as the number of days it takes from January 1st to the next January 1st?

Or is it defined as the number of days it takes for the earth to make a complete orbit of the sun?

A real "year" is the second, not the first. The extra Feb 29th added in leap years is really a "fudge factor" to make our calendars line up with the position of the Earth in its orbit.

So, over the course of 5 "sidereal" years, meaning that the earth completes an orbit around the sun, the earth will actually rotate 5 x 365.2425 = 1,826.2125 times.

If you do it the way the other answerer did, you're either undershooting by 0.2425 days (6 hours 3.75 minutes) or you're overshooting by 1 - 0.2425 days = 0.7575 days (18 hours 10.8 minutes).

So if you were looking for the number of minutes and seconds in 5 CALENDAR years, pick her answer. If you were looking for the number of minutes and seconds in ACTUAL years, pick mine.