We like our summers in July and our snow in December. Leap Year ensures it remains that way, explains Duke physics professor in this short video. Plesser breaks down the math behind adding a day to the calendar every four years so that we remain in sync with the Earth鈥檚 rotation around the sun.
The annual gap between the calendar year and the Earth's rotation 鈥渁ccumulates at the rate of one day every four years, and after a hundred years, you鈥檙e 25 days or a month out of sync. That鈥檚 a problem,鈥 Plesser said. 鈥淲hat we do is we add a day every four years to make the average year the same as the average time from summer to summer, that way our seasons don鈥檛 get out of whack with the calendar.鈥