Bridging the Middle

I confess.  My birthday is February 29^th and did not have an “official” birthday this year.  Yet, somehow I am a year older.  Instead of making fun of people born on  Leap Year Day, society needs to better understand our predicament and ease our pain.  A government bailout should be made available to ‘Leaplings’ (our preferred term).  A lobbying group, the Leapling Honor Society, has been formed.  The following information should help during your next interaction with one of our kind.

Why Do Leap Years Exist

Leap Years are necessary to align the Gregorian 365 day calendar system to the astronomical year of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (time it takes for the earth to circle the sun once).  While those 6 hours don’t seem like much, it shifts the calendar a full day every 4 years.  For reasons connected back primarily to religion (e.g., Christmas on the 25^th and Easter near the vernal equinox), a correction needed introduction.  This occurred first in 45 B.C. under Julius Caesar and was later adopted by the Nicaean Council in 325 AD for all of Christendom.

However, since the shift isn’t exactly 6 hours (those 11 minutes and 14 seconds matter), every 128 years a day shift occurs in the opposite direction.  Pope Gregory discovered and corrected for this in March 1582 by dropping 10 days and establishing the Gregorian calendar system.  Gregorian adds conditional rules to account for the extra minutes and seconds: every 100 years is not a Leap Year, every 400 years is a Leap Year (e.g., 2000), except the year 4000 and its multiples (there is lots of math relative to Leap Years).  For the sake of brevity I have omitted how other calendar systems (Muslim, Jewish, Chinese) handle these differences.  However, the entire subject of history, calendars, and religion is highly intertwined.   To read all the detail, visit Wikipedia.

Choosing the Correct Day to Celebrate

When do I expect people to give me presents?  Most people believe that Leaplings have the option of celebrating either on February 28^th or March 1^st.  Often, Leaplings will prefer the most convenient, i.e., on a Friday versus a Thursday.  We also believe that our birthday exists, so quit the joke about not having a birthday (it was old by our 9^th calendar year).  And we do deserve extra special birthday parties in real Leap Years.  In reality, there are two analytical options to determine the correct date:

1. Adding 6 hours to your birth hour every year.  For example, if you were born at 8pm on February 29^th, the following year would be 2am on the following day, or March 1^st.  However, this means that most non-Leaplings born after noon are celebrating the wrong birthdays during the last two years of a cycle.
2. Using a known reference point, e.g., on the last day of February (my preferred method).

Interesting Leap Year Factoids

• A Leap Second exists whereby a second is inserted into the year (usually on New Year’s Eve) to make up for the earth’s rotation slowing down.   Amazingly, people have catalogued the electronic addition of the second for prosperity.
• An old English tradition (credited to St. Patrick in 5^th century Ireland) exists whereby women may propose marriage on Leap Years.  Men have to accept or face a fines ranging from 12 pairs of gloves to fabric to make a dress.  A movie called “Leap Year” was just released with this premise (no, I did not see it).
• Famous people born on Leap Day – Pope Paul III to Cam Ward (hockey player)
• In Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic the pirate apprentice discovers that he is bound to serve the pirates until his 21st birthday rather than until his 21st year.
• Proposal to rename Leap Year Day to Galileo Day in 2012

Are you a Leapling?  When do you celebrate your birthday?  Thanks for being educated and be nice to us.

This entry was posted on March 1, 2010 at 3:33 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.