Editing 2897: Light Leap Years
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
==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 | + | 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 making the year 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 shortens the distance 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 joke hinges on the | + | The joke hinges on the fluidity of the term "year" throughout history, 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 standard. 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 | + | The title text imaginatively claims {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}}, who introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, inadvertently affected the length of the light-year, leading to "navigational chaos" and the loss of fictional "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 emerged in 1676 with {{w|Rømer's determination of the speed of light}}. Navigational chaos ''has'' been a cause of shipwrecks, notably the {{w|Scilly naval disaster of 1707}} in which 4 ships were lost and over 1,400 sailors died. |
− | + | The comic implies the distance to Proxima Centauri varies slightly between leap years and non-leap years, according to the leap year calculation. In reality, astronomers wouldn’t be bothered by this change: they use the {{w|parsec}} for interstellar distances, a unit based on angular measurements unrelated to Earth's calendar. | |
− | + | This is the second comic in the last 10 about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications, the other being [[2888]]. | |
− | + | ===Discussion of light year values in the comic=== | |
− | |||
− | ===Discussion | ||
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). | 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). | ||
− | |||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop on it and leaning to the back of his office chair, while having his other hand on the laptop. He is looking at Ponytail | + | :[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop on it and leaning to the back of his office chair, while having his other hand on the laptop. He is looking at Ponytail standing behind him. The text from the laptop screen is shown above it, indicated with a zigzag line.] |
:Cueball: It took until February, but I finally got all the distances updated! | :Cueball: It took until February, but I finally got all the distances updated! | ||
:Ponytail: I really wish we didn't have to do this. | :Ponytail: I really wish we didn't have to do this. |