Leap Day

This is only the third Leap Day we’ve had since I’ve started this blog, and this is the first time I’ve made a point of noting it. Aside from being the one extra day every four years (and, technically, only every 400 years on the century marks), the only other notable thing I can think of about the day is that there is a folk tradition wherein a woman asks a man to marry on this day rather than the other way around.

Leap Year itself is more interesting to me in large part because of that “400 years” observation I made above: a quirk in the calculation in the Gregorian calendar which we use. However even that pales to some of the other leap year calculations made in different calendars: in particular the Chinese, Hebrew, and Iranian ones seem especially difficult. I know the algorithm for computing a leap year in the Gregorian calendar, but the mind boggles at the ones for these others.

If you’re lucky enough to have a birthday today, happy birthday! I’ll buy you a drink on your next one, four years from now…

Postscript: Apparently I forgot to push “Publish” on the day itself!