Post date: Jan 1, 2013 7:24:22 PM
Leap years are there because it takes 365.24 days to go around the sun, and that extra 0.24 needs to be accounted for, since every 4 years it gets close to adding in an extra day... we we added in February 29th on leap years to account for the extra time added in. What about leap seconds? Well, there are a bunch of different time standards out there, and each of them is slightly different, some with leap seconds, and some without. Could we get rid of leap seconds by slowing down the earth's rotation? Find out what it would take by going here: http://what-if.xkcd.com/26/