Brain Teasers
Time in a day
Take 24 hours. Subtract that from a day. How many seconds do you have left?
Hint
Don't go too fast on this one. Try to remember how many days are in a year. (not 365....exactly)Answer
About 59 seconds. Remember, a day isn't exactly 24 hours since every year has 365 1/4 days. (6/365)*60*60 = 59.178Hide Hint Show Hint Hide Answer Show Answer
What Next?
View a Similar Brain Teaser...
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Solve a Puzzle
Comments
But every day IS exactly 24 hours; that's why we have to add the 1/4 day so the year comes out to the right number of seconds.
A year does not have 365 1/4 days. The exact number is different. If I remember correctly then if a year is divisible by 100 but not by 400 then no additional day (February 29) is added.
Ok people this is how it goes. The question is completely messed up first of all because even if your answer was the right number of seconds, it would be -59 because you said subtract 24 hours FROM the day. Second, a standard day is exactly 24 hours, no matter if the time the Earth takes to rotate is less or not. Finally, it wouldn't be 59 seconds anyway because the Earth takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds to rotate, so the answer would actually be -236 seconds (with the wording error mentioned above).
Leap year is only an approximate amount as well. In millions of years, if we followed the same time schedule, the Earth would be where it is in December in June (because of that slight difference in our time and actual time) and the seasons would be backwards.
Because the orbital motion of the Earth makes the Sun seem to move slightly eastward each day relative to the stars, the solar day is about four minutes longer than the sidereal day; i.e., the mean solar day is 24 hours 3 minutes 56.555 seconds of mean sidereal time; more usually the sidereal day is expressed in terms of solar time, being 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds of mean solar time long.
The reason we have February 29th every 4 years is because of that 1/4 day. Every day therefor has 24 hours.
Where are the editor's? This awkward stab at subtracting one rotation from one-365th of an orbit has been around for over four orbits.
If the question is a solar day then it is exactly 24 hours long. That is why there are 365 1/4 DAYS (= 24 periods) in a year. If the question intends mean sidereal day (the time it takes the earth to complete one revolution without reference to the position of the sun) then it is less than 24 hours so if you subtracted 24 hours there would be a negative number of seconds resulting. This question is incomprehensible.
To post a comment, please create an account and sign in.
Follow Braingle!