[LEAPSECS] An example

Zefram zefram at fysh.org
Thu Nov 4 12:23:50 EDT 2010


Ian Batten wrote:

>I didn't mean in legislative terms, I meant in "keeping the equinoxes

>where they are in the calendar terms" terms.


For that objective, any arithmetic calendar fails eventually. The maximal
date of "eventually" is determined by the precision with which we can
predict future astronomical motions, and IIRC we lose day-level precision
on this a few thousand years hence. So to get the equinoxes right for the
year 4000, let alone the year 44000, you need an observational calendar.

Happily, the Gregorian calendar is an arithmetic one, and the year 4000
is unambiguously a leap year.

-zefram


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