Now, the Feb bug: In 2000, the month may have 30 days

MUMBAI, JAN 1: Will February 2000 have 30 days? It is definitely a million-dollar question. With the computer-buffs already struggling ha...

MUMBAI, JAN 1: Will February 2000 have 30 days? It is definitely a million-dollar question. With the computer-buffs already struggling hard combating the January 1, 2000, better known as Y2K problem, they are not taking chances and have taken the reports on February 30, 2000 bug seriously.

Normally, February has 28 days, and on leap years it is 29 days. The computers are configured so but with February 30, 2000 — the harried geeks have to develop some methods on the Y2K way to find a solution. If they can’t, the whole data of that day may become useless and every electronic calender may blink out, that is, if the February big bites.

According to some experts, the last time the date (February 30) dawned was almost 400 years ago. On February 30, 1600 to be precise, they claim.

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The Gregorian calender — which began on October 15, 1583, and runs in a cycle of 400 years — takes into account the fact that the earth’s revolution period around the sun is not exactly 365 days, but slightly more than that.This accumulated time, then results in a leap year. But still some extra seconds go on accumulating from the leap years, thus resulting in an extra day — February 30. And over the last 400 years, these extra seconds have accumulated leading to a possibility of the 2000 February having 30 days, these experts opine.

Director of Nehru Planetarium and Director of Astronomical Research at the Nehru Science Centre Dr J J Raval believes in the possibility. "I am working out the details and making various calculations to find it out," he said.

Raval, however pointed out that any formal announcement will be made by the US Naval Observatory and the Bureau of Standards, Paris. There is no need to panic, as it is not mandatory to add a day in the year 2000.

However, B Narayanswamy of Delhi-based Indica research group points out that the error accumulates to only about three hours and not one full day in the course of 400 years. It will take another 2800 years to make it a full day in AD 4800.

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Explaining histheory he says a leap year, that is a year with 366 days instead of 365 — has been around since 38 BC and was counted once in three years instead of four. The correction to once in four years was affected from 8 AD in the Julian Calender and it counted all centurial years as leap years. However, the Gregorian calender skips leap years in three out of four centurial years, and a leap year is only divisible by four.

The rule of Gregorian calendar is said to be perfect, he points out adding that the result is very close to real length of the year. Moreover, there was no single date around the world in 1600 AD to assert about February 30, 1600.

Arguments apart we still have more than an year left for February 2000 and by then hopefully there will be a solution to this bug.