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When Pope Gregory XIII briefly shortened the light-year in 1582, it led to navigational chaos and the loss of several Papal starships.
Why not redefine lightyears to include a leap year every four years. Except when the number ends on 00, but only if it is not divisible by 400. Physics would be so much easier!
Alt text lol
there's never been a "Papal starship"^[citation ^needed]
There hasn't been a Papal starship yet. I'm pretty sure he could Christen one, or delegate that authority to the bishop of the moon, an actual thing that technically exists.
Clearly they don't know about Hyperion books
That was my first thought
Hmmm now that I think about this a light year would be (should be) based on an average year, not what we observe in any given year.
365.2425 days. Different searches give different results but that's what I'm going with.
idk, it feels more intuitive for it to be based on the mode (most common) year length (365) instead of the average year length (365.2425).
The boring answer is that in physics a year is just defined as the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun, they don't care about calendars and leap years
I would've said 365.25 days?
No, years divisible by 100 aren't leap years, except if they're also divisible by 400.
what is this, some sort of FizzBuzz calendar?
Interestingly, Wikipedia says they actually did base it on 365.25 instead of the actual 365.2425, so you’re technically right.
They skip leap years every now and then. And then skip the skip. Etc. The rotation of the earth around the sun and the spin of the earth on its axis simply don't line up into a nice number.
You'd be imprecise for civil timekeeping, but spot on for astronomy
The civil rule is it's a leap year if the year is divisible by 4, unless it is also divisible by 100 unless it is also divisible by 400
We saw the rules play out in 2000 (at least those of us over 23 saw it) which is a year divisible by 100 and by 400 so it was a leap year
Yours (and astronomy's) is Julian style "if it's divisible by 4"
I prefer the newer calendars, where there is no good mental calculation for leap years - it's a leap year when the computer says it's a leap year
I would think that the best time period to use for a light year is whatever year definition has been used to date
Now let's work on the best second to use for the light second
Just wondering, but do people actually find xkcd funny? Are these comics supposed to be funny?
do people actually find xkcd funny?
Yes. And I should know, I'm a people.
get out, I'm people too. we should start a club.
Peoplebros! Who'd have thought I'd meet another people here??
Bro, me too! I bet there are almost a dozen of us!
I'm a people.
Citation needed
I don't have an exact reference for you, but it sounds like a quote from Hawkeye (Alan Alda) from MASH.
absolutely.
not every joke is going to land with everyone. sometimes they're not even jokes, just pointing out absurdities.
if they don't land with you, i wouldn't stress it. sometimes the humor is extremely nerdy. it's like the Far Side or Monty Python. it's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's OK.
It falls often into sensible chuckle territory rather than stand-up comic material kind of funny.
They're hit or miss. This one is mildly amusing to me. It's been going strong 3 comics a week for how many years now? Not all of them are good of course, some I consider just bad but I think most weeks have at least one good one.
This one made me laugh. Most I just find to be novel, silly, or interesting, but a fair few are pretty funny to me.
It's a comic published multiple times a week. Common social etiquette is that if you find it funny (which is known to happen), you give it a grin or a mild chuckle or whatever, and then move on with your morning and, by extension, the rest of your life.