2897: Light Leap Years - Revision history

Firestar233: i wouldn't call these annotations

2025-02-05T04:18:30Z

i wouldn't call these annotations

172.71.215.215 at 21:49, 4 February 2025

2025-02-04T21:49:22Z

42.book.addict: /* Transcript */

2024-12-19T18:49:47Z

‎Transcript

172.68.205.179: /* Explanation */ And others, I'm fairly sure. But generally 'improving' the statement/link as given.

2024-10-26T16:15:12Z

‎Explanation: And others, I'm fairly sure. But generally 'improving' the statement/link as given.

CategoryGeneral at 09:52, 26 October 2024

2024-10-26T09:52:18Z

B for brain: /* Explanation */

2024-03-05T18:44:47Z

‎Explanation

172.69.194.73: /* Explanation */ Proof by link. Slight adjustment of sentence sense.

2024-03-04T12:10:13Z

‎Explanation: Proof by link. Slight adjustment of sentence sense.

172.71.242.220: Undo revision 336508 by [...] Not redundant, required. The skip was not due to being a leap-year, at least in part because it was not ever a leap year (1582/4=395½). Even had it been one, the bulk of the change remains due to pre-Gregorian leapyears.

2024-03-04T11:48:57Z

Undo revision 336508 by [...] Not redundant, required. The skip was not due to being a leap-year, at least *in part* because it was not ever a leap year (1582/4=395½). Even had it been one, the bulk of the change remains due to *pre-Gregorian* leapyears.

172.69.33.61: redundant from earlier in sentence

2024-03-04T02:16:21Z

redundant from earlier in sentence

172.71.150.144: /* Discussion of the use of light year values in the comic */ "complimentary"/"complementary" pedantry

2024-03-03T07:43:53Z

‎Discussion of the use of light year values in the comic: "complimentary"/"complementary" pedantry

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:18, 5 February 2025
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−	~~[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:49, 4 February 2025
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	[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]		[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
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 :[Laptop screen:]
 :<u>Proxima Centauri</u>
-:Distance: [in red, crossed out] <span style="color:red"><s>4.2493 ly</s></span>
+:Distance: [in red, crossed out] <span style="color:red"><s>4.2493 LY</s></span>
-:[in green] <span style="color:green">4.2377 ly</span>
+:[in green] <span style="color:green">4.2377 LY</span>
 :[Caption below the panel:]

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 Alternatively, the title text could be interpreted as a joke about how the light-year in astronomy is based on the Julian year (365.25 days) rather than the mean Gregorian year (365.2425 days). The pope may have briefly changed that definition, leading to "navigational chaos". Although the difference between a Julian light-year and a Gregorian light-year is only about 20 parts per million, it still amounts to about 194 million km (121 million mi) per light year.
-This is another comic, after the very recent [[2888: US Survey Foot]], about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications. "Light Year" was previously mentioned in [[1047]].
+This is another comic, after the very recent [[2888: US Survey Foot]], about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications. The light-year was previously mentioned in [[1047: Approximations]].
 ===Discussion of the use of light year values in the comic===

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 Alternatively, the title text could be interpreted as a joke about how the light-year in astronomy is based on the Julian year (365.25 days) rather than the mean Gregorian year (365.2425 days). The pope may have briefly changed that definition, leading to "navigational chaos". Although the difference between a Julian light-year and a Gregorian light-year is only about 20 parts per million, it still amounts to about 194 million km (121 million mi) per light year.
-This is another comic, after the very recent [[2888: US Survey Foot]], about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications.
+This is another comic, after the very recent [[2888: US Survey Foot]], about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications. "Light Year" was previously mentioned in [[1047]].
 ===Discussion of the use of light year values in the comic===

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:44, 5 March 2024
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	==Explanation==		==Explanation==
−	~~{{incomplete\|Created by A FLEET OF PAPAL STARSHIPS FROM ANNO DOMINI MDLXXXII - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}~~

	The comic features [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] updating astronomical distances in a database. The caption imagines a world in which {{w\|leap year}}s, which add an extra day to the year, making it 366 days long instead of 365, purportedly extend light-years by 0.27% due to the additional day (366/365 = 1.0027397...). This adjustment ostensibly reduces the number of light years to celestial bodies like Alpha Centauri by a corresponding percentage — a relatively small amount, but one that corresponds to approximately 730 times the average Earth-sun distance. The comic was released about a week before the leap day of 2024, a leap year.		The comic features [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] updating astronomical distances in a database. The caption imagines a world in which {{w\|leap year}}s, which add an extra day to the year, making it 366 days long instead of 365, purportedly extend light-years by 0.27% due to the additional day (366/365 = 1.0027397...). This adjustment ostensibly reduces the number of light years to celestial bodies like Alpha Centauri by a corresponding percentage — a relatively small amount, but one that corresponds to approximately 730 times the average Earth-sun distance. The comic was released about a week before the leap day of 2024, a leap year.

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 The joke hinges on the fact that in most common usages years have a variable length, with the {{w|Gregorian calendar}}'s leap year system — adding a day every four years to align the calendar year with the astronomical year — being the current civil standard in most of the world. A {{w|light year}}, defined in astronomy as the distance light travels in a vacuum over a Julian year (365.25 days), remains constant at 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, unaffected by the Gregorian calendar's leap years. However, the comic amusingly suggests that leap years lengthen light years, necessitating database updates for astronomical distances.
-The title text imaginatively claims {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}}, who introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, inadvertently affected the length of the light-year. This is not due to 1582 being a leap-year (it was ''not'' a leap-year), but because of the calendar days that also had to be skipped to remove the timing error built up when using the less correct Julian method of prior leap-years. Those adopting that system in 1582 had to shorten this year by ten days. {{w|List of adoption dates of the Gregorian calendar by country|Later adopters}} may have had to shorten the year that they ''did'' change by up to 13 days, i.e. up to three extra days for every four whole centuries spent on the 'wrong' calendar.
+The title text imaginatively claims {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}}, who introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, inadvertently affected the length of the light-year. This is not due to 1582 being a leap-year (it was [https://www.customcalendarmaker.com/leap-years ''not'' a leap-year]), but because of the calendar days that had to be skipped to remove the timing error built up when using the prior (and less correct) Julian method of leap-years. Those adopting the system in 1582 had to shorten this year by ten days. {{w|List of adoption dates of the Gregorian calendar by country|Later adopters}} may have had to shorten the year that they ''did'' change by up to 13 days, i.e. up to three extra days for every four whole centuries spent on the 'wrong' calendar.
 A year of effectively 355 days, rather than 365, would therefore lead (by this comic's premise) to potential misunderstandings/misapplications of distance approaching 3%, leading to "navigational chaos" and the loss of "Papal starships." This satirizes the significant historical impact of calendar reforms on navigation and measurement, despite the anachronism, as the light-year wasn't defined until 1838 and the concept of a finite speed of light only emerged in 1676 with {{w|Rømer's determination of the speed of light}}, whilst practical starships (papal or otherwise) that would usefully rely upon light-year measurements, have yet to be developed (on Earth, at least, the only place where such light-year measurements might originate). However, navigational chaos ''has'' been a cause of maritime shipwrecks, such as the notable {{w|Scilly naval disaster of 1707}} in which four ships were lost and over 1,400 sailors died due to navigational errors.

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 The values given for Proxima Centauri's distance from the Sun, 4.2377 light-leap-years and 4.2493 light-nonleap-years, are consistent with a distance of 4.2464 actual light-years as described by the {{w|International Astronomical Union}}, which is only minutely different from 4.2465 light-years, the value given by {{w|Gaia catalogues|Gaia Data Release 3}} in 2020. Though tiny on an interstellar scale, the difference between 4.2377 and 4.2493 light-years, 0.0116 light years, equals 109.7 billion km (68.2 billion miles), about 730 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun (150 million km or 93 million miles).
-Ironically, this kind of change would not actually bother astronomers in the slightest. Astronomical distances on scales larger than the solar system are universally (or rather, globally: we do not know how things are done in other parts of the universe) measured with the {{w|parsec}} ("''pc''", or useful multiples such as ''kpc'', ''Mpc'', or ''Gpc''). One of those is approximately 3.24 light years, so has a [[2205: Types of Approximation|similar astronomical magnitude]], but is founded upon common interpretations of distance and angle instead of time. (Both partly rely upon baselines measure that are complimentary aspects of Earth's orbit, i.e. its periodicity and radius, which theoretically make for a globally agreeable system; but highly unlikely to match whatever equivalent any non-terran scientists would independently develop.)  While light-years, and {{w|Light-year#Related units|related units}}, are common in publications intended for non-astrophysicists and for the benefit of laypersons, they are generally considered as secondary usefulness to parsecs within the actual fields of astronomy and astrophysics research. As such, it is highly likely that the clearly exacting database that Cueball and Ponytail are in the process of modifying is not even keyed to any light-units, making leap-/non-leap-light-years already an automatic conversion that the system may pander for without such a direct interaction.
+Ironically, this kind of change would not actually bother astronomers in the slightest. Astronomical distances on scales larger than the solar system are universally (or rather, globally: we do not know how things are done in other parts of the universe) measured with the {{w|parsec}} ("''pc''", or useful multiples such as ''kpc'', ''Mpc'', or ''Gpc''). One of those is approximately 3.24 light years, so has a [[2205: Types of Approximation|similar astronomical magnitude]], but is founded upon common interpretations of distance and angle instead of time. (Both partly rely upon baseline measures that are complementary aspects of Earth's orbit, i.e. its periodicity and radius, which theoretically make for a globally agreeable system; but highly unlikely to match whatever equivalent any non-terran scientists would independently develop.)  While light-years, and {{w|Light-year#Related units|related units}}, are common in publications intended for non-astrophysicists and for the benefit of laypersons, they are generally considered as secondary usefulness to parsecs within the actual fields of astronomy and astrophysics research. As such, it is highly likely that the clearly exacting database that Cueball and Ponytail are in the process of modifying is not even keyed to any light-units, making leap-/non-leap-light-years already an automatic conversion that the system may pander for without such a direct interaction.
 ==Transcript==