Just a reminder, February has 29 days this year.
Have you ever wondered why we have an extra day once every four years or how that came to be? If you’ve wondered, so has your audience.
, the Presidential Research Excellence Professor in the Texas Tech University , can answer those questions.
Maccarone earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology and his master’s degree and doctorate in astronomy from Yale University. His research interests include population studies of X-ray binaries and globular cluster black holes, understanding accretion in black hole and systems, and stellar mass and . Maccarone led the discovery of the ; the discovery of an ; and the discovery of .
Talking points
- Why do we have leap years?
- Leap years aren’t exactly every four years like everyone thinks they are.
- Getting the calendar right was first considered important in determining the correct date for Easter, so Pope Gregory put forth calendar reforms in 1582. Great Britain and its colonies didn’t adopt the new calendar until 1752, which throws into uncertainty the exact date of another February remembrance: Washington’s birthday, which we now celebrate as Presidents’ Day.
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