20000117

February 2000

to have 29 days

and not 30

ISLAMABAD: February 2000 will have 29 days and not 30 days as considered by a large number of people worldwide and computers will operate smoothly and will not affect calendars, diaries, etc.

According to computer experts, the leap year conflict starts with difference in Gregorian and Roman calendars. According to Gregorian calendar the month of February is of 30 and 31 days after every 400 and 1200 years respectively.

But almost all computers use Roman calendar, according to that system generally after every four years February has 29 days, this is done to adjust the calendar according to the actual rotation of the earth around the sun which takes around 365.2422 days, so a day is added every four years to take care of this extra 0.2422 day.

However, the value is slightly less than 0.25 so adding an extra day every four-year builds a surplus of 0.0078 day per four years. In order to make it more accurate, the century years, though divisible by four, are not counted as leap year. But this again results into a slight shortcoming. So every century year, which is divisible by 400, is counted as a leap year, thus February 2000 will have 29 days.

For example: 1600 is a leap year; 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not leap years; 1992 is a leap year, 1996 is a leap year; 2000 is a leap year; 2100, 2200, 2300 are not leap years.

The February, 2000 computer problem is that some computer programmers did not consider 2000 as leap year and thus in their programmes the way they check a leap year is to divide it by four and then divide it by 100. If it is divisible by 100 they do not put it as a leap year February.ÑAPP