Leap Year

It’s a leap year, which means we’re stuck with an extra day this month. February is normally the shortest month of the year. And 28 days is about all we can take from a month where a groundhog has so much “power” over future weather conditions (just to clarify, Marmota monax has only been accurate about Spring’s arrival 37 percent of the time for the past 30-40 years; I personally wouldn’t trust the little rodent with choosing winning lottery numbers let alone making climate predictions). But thanks to a calculation adjustment, February is not going to be as short as it should be this time of year. If you’re like me (and I hope for your sanity you’re not), then you’re probably starting to suspect we’re getting saddled with a day we don’t really need. I mean, take a look outside your window. Pretty uninspiring, huh? February is hands down one of the cruelest and most depressing months in any Midwestern city. The skies are usually grey and overcast. The temperatures refuse to budge from frigid territory. Summer is nowhere in sight and you’ve just about had it with layering and hat hair. Chicagoans are a hardy bunch and we’re used to erratic and unpredictable weather. We rely on beer and a warm body to get us through the worst of winter. At some point though, usually around February the 1^st, even the levelheaded among us start to panic when we realize we still have unreliable March and frivolous April to endure. The last thing we need right now is an extra day courtesy of a leap year! But there’s no way around it. Trust me, I checked. The Western, or Gregorian, calendar is the current standard calendar used in most places of the world. We have grown to cycle and organize our every day lives around such a civil system. Weddings, birthdays, periods, holidays, these are all events we plot on the Gregorian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII first introduced the Gregorian calendar back in February (of course) of 1582. And it’s ironic to note why he felt compelled to do so. For Pope Gregory understood the importance of balance and alignment.

In a perfectly proportioned mathematical universe, there can be no room for error or inconsistencies. The universe relies on order and balance, even amidst apparent chaos and instability. Yet a tiny error was made on a calendar that was threatening to set the whole universe off balance! All right, so I don’t think Pope Gregory uttered those words but that doesn’t mean the thought didn’t occur to him. You see, it turns out the year was too long in 1582. “By how much,” you’re wondering and how was this miscalculation affecting the cosmos? By 11 tiny minutes. Julius Caesar got it wrong way back in 46 BC when he introduced the Julian calendar (which had been in use for centuries) and Pope Gregory set out to reform his cosmic mistake.

You’re still baffled. I can tell. And I don’t want you to stop reading. What does a calendar have to do with the universe, Maria? Everything! Think of it this way: if your perception of your place in this universe is heavily dependent on time and patterns, then how can you be sure of anything if the calendar you use to organize your life is wrong? That’s pretty deep stuff people. I wouldn’t have tolerated a mistake of such grand magnitude either. The Julian calendar mistakenly assumed that the time between vernal equinoxes was 365.25 days (365 days and 6 hours), when in fact it was almost exactly 11 minutes shorter. As a result, the calendar year gained about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and seasons. Furthermore, the equinox was occurring on March 11 (that’s an accumulated error of 10 days) and moving steadily earlier with the Julian calendar.  

How could Julius have done such an insidious thing? Easy: the calendar year was intended to approximate the tropical (solar) year. But here’s the damning part: Greek astronomers had known, at least since Hipparchus, that the tropical year was a few minutes shorter than 365.25 days. Whoa, wait a second. You mean lots of people (well, the smart ones anyway) knew the calendar did not compensate for this difference, yet somebody went ahead and changed it anyway? Yes, you see, Julius REFORMED the Roman calendar that had been in use prior to the Julian calendar. Yet another ironic revelation falls into our lap. With all these reformations, you’d think at least one person would have gotten it right. And Pope Gregory did when he stepped forward in 1582 with his calendar modifications. But these important modifications were met with much resistance. The vernal equinox had drifted back into a time that was over—it had lapsed into some unforeseen vortex where events had already taken place. Who knows what was happening to it out there, driven off course as it had been by one tiny error?  

Clearly the vernal equinox needed to be saved. It doesn’t matter if Pope Gregory’s reasons for setting the equinox straight were for strictly practical purposes. Since the Spring equinox was tied to the celebration of Easter, the Roman Catholic Church considered the equinox’s retreat to an earlier date undesirable. An alteration to the calendar was the only recourse.

I don’t know about you, but I consider Pope Gregory’s bold move (sidenote: he was largely aided by Jesuit priest and astronomer Christopher Clavius; the man didn’t do it alone) quite heroic. The switchover was bitterly opposed by much of the populace. They feared it was an attempt by landlords to cheat them out of a week and a half's rent. Uprisings were threatening to erupt! Actually, no. Yet there was indeed a world of confusion and resistance. I mean, I'd get a little standoffish too if I thought money was involved in calendar changes.

But Pope Gregory pressed ahead with reformations to the Julian calendar, as well as alterations to the lunar cycle used by the Church for calculating the dates of Easter. The Julian calendar’s regular cycle of leap years were also affected. I’m sure you were starting to think I had forgotten all about the main subject of this post. With the new and improved Gregorian calendar, every year that is exactly divisible by four would become a leap year (except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years). More importantly though, the mean length of the calendar year changed from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days (365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds), a reduction of 10 minutes 48 seconds per year.

And there you have it. A leap year is as necessary to the cosmos as the sun and gravity. Can you imagine how our lives would be playing out right now if the Julian calendar were still around? 11 minutes might not seem like much but accumulated over the course of several centuries, they would add up to several years lost and relived in a different dimension. Today might be five years ago! Would I even be the “me” that was the “me” back then, or would I be the “me” that is the “me” today but forced to relive the past due to one tiny error? Stop. I can’t even handle that idea. As it stands today with the Gregorian calendar, we gain one day in February every four years but at least we don’t lose time that we should be experiencing in the present. Living in the past sounds like such a romantic but ultimately destructive notion. Who doesn’t want to relive their best days and memories? But at what point do you achieve growth and equilibrium if you remain rooted in the past? The past is never far but it should never be a replacement for the present. As I continue to fight for balance and happiness in this dimension, I flip to February 29th on my Gregorian calendar and realize it's something to celebrate.