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Seconds in a year (Posted on 2003-01-06) Difficulty: 2 of 5
How many seconds are there in one year?

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Some Thoughts Take a second....(spoiler) Comment 38 of 38 |
(In reply to Wait a second! by Math Man)

A "second" is most often thought of as the unit of time that is 1/60th of a minute, yet the "trick" is that the word can have other meanings. In particular, the ordinal term.  Thus, the number of "seconds" in a year would depend on one's interpretation of the word, yet it also depends upon one's interpretation of "year".

In the Gregorian calendar there are 12 months with each month having a second day of the month (January 2nd, February 2nd, etc.), hence the answer could be 12 "seconds"  in a year. Yet there are other calendar systems. The Islamic  or Hijri Qamari calendar is a lunar calendar. As the solar year is not the same as the lunar year (354.37 days), an intercalary month is added every so often. The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar, and also is adjusted with an intercalary month, or leapmonth (Adar II). Thus, the calendar year will occasionally have 13 months. Given the addtional intercalary month and using English to denote the ordinal day of the month the answer could then be 13 "seconds" in a year (during "leap" or intercalary years).

The ordinal term "second", of course can be applied to any series of a year or cycle of series of a year. In the case where there are 12 (or 13) seconds in the year, the term is beina applied ot the cycle of months. The year is also often divided into weeks. In the standard year of the Gregorian and Julian calendars there are 52 weeks in a year, thus there can be 52 "seconds" (days of the week) in a year.

The number of "seconds" then is not definitive unless given a definite bound. Any qualified answer different than the solution may still be correct.


  Posted by Dej Mar on 2012-03-28 07:12:39
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