2024 is a leap year, but why? Here’s the science behind the anomaly, the mathematical fix

Ella Gonzales
·3 min read

Happy birthday to the millions of leaplings around the world who get to celebrate their day on the actual date of their birth. Cheers to the leap year!

But how did we even end up with leap years?

“It takes Earth 365.242190 days to orbit the sun, or 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds. This ‘sidereal’ year is slightly longer than the calendar year, and that extra 5 hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds needs to be accounted for somehow.” according to the Smithsonian Institute.

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Since the Gregorian Calendar, which is the calendar we use today, has only 365 days, it does not account for the extra quarter of a day that the Earth requires to complete its orbit around the sun. This throws it off alignment with the solar year. Meaning if we do not account for the difference, calendars will eventually get out of sync with the seasons. Our summers would start in September and Winters in March after a few centuries without the correction. Thus, our calendar adds an extra day every four years: Feb. 29.

Problem solved, right? Not precisely.

While an extra day might take care of the drift, it isn’t an exact fix.

“Adding a leap day every four years overcompensates by a few extra seconds each leap year, adding up to about three extra days every 10,000 years,” according to the Farmer’s Almanac.

Thus a mathematical fix had to be inserted in this already complicated equation:.

  • A year may be a leap year if it is evenly divisible by 4.

  • Years divisible by 100 (century years such as 1900 or 2000) cannot be leap years unless they are also divisible by 400. (For this reason, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 were.)

Got all that?

Now, back to the leapsters. On ordinary years, they get to choose when to celebrate their day of birth, which can be on Feb. 28 or March 1.

When are the next leap years?

  • 2028 — Thursday, Feb. 29

  • 2032 — Tuesday, Feb. 29

  • 2036 — Friday, Feb. 29

Tony Robbins
Tony Robbins

Celebrities born on leap day

This list was compiled by timeanddate.com:

  • 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)

  • 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (William Tell, The Barber of Seville) (d. 1868)

  • 1896 – Morarji Desai, former Indian prime minister (d. 1995)

  • 1968 – Wendi Louise Peters, English television and theatre character actress

  • 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)

  • 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player

  • 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, former president of El Salvador

  • 1960 – Anthony (Tony) Robbins, American motivational speaker

  • 1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player

  • 1972 – Saul Stacey Williams, American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

  • 1972 – Antonio Sabàto Jr, Italian-born actor

  • 1976 – Ja Rule (real name Jeffrey Atkins), American rapper and actor

  • 1980 – Chris Conley, American musician and songwriter/composer