Year

A year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the Sun, after which it goes round again, in case it missed anything.^[1]

A year has 12 months, 365 days and 52 weeks, plus one day left over that does not belong to any week and has to make its own way to the end of December. Every fourth year it is joined by a leap day, so that it has company.

New Year

At midnight on 31 December, one year ends and the next begins. In 1998 a team of physicists set up 40 instruments to record what changes at that moment. They recorded no change in anything at all, except that everybody in the building started writing the wrong year on things, and kept doing so until about March.^[2]

Counting

Years are numbered in order, so that each one is one more than the last. This system has worked without interruption, and calendar historians report that no year has ever been skipped, repeated or done twice for practice.

Scholars still disagree about whether the year starts in January or merely resumes there. The Resumptionists point out that the Earth does not stop between orbits; the Startists point out that the calendar has a new picture on it.

Light-years

A light-year is not a year. It is the distance light travels in a year, and has been confusing people for light-years.^[3]

See also

• Leap day – the year's occasional plus-one
• Fortnight – a year's smaller cousin, by quite a lot
• Week – 52 of them, and some spare

References

1. Annum, A. (1998). Nothing Happened at Midnight. Calendar Press. p. 1.
2. Orbit, E. (2012). Round Again. Solar Books.
3. Parsec, P. (n.d.). “Is a Light-Year a Long Time?” No.