How many minutes are there in a year?

ANS:

Well, I am not really a professional in this

But there are many ways to define what “a year” is.

So here are my answers from different perspectives that I thought about.

1. By calculating the time that Earth revolves/orbits around the sun, once.
   1. According to NASA, the time that Earth revolves around the sun is 365 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes, and 16 seconds. This translates to: 365×24×60 + 5×60 + 59 + 16/60= 525,959 and 4/15 minutes.
2. By using the Calendar as a standpoint.
   1. Since there are 365 days in a Calendar for non-leap years, there are 365×24×60 = 525,600 minutes.
   2. For leap years such as 2020, there are 366 days in a calendar, which translates to 366x24x60 = 527,040 minutes.
      1. However, this system has a flaw. There will always be some sort of error not taken into account and this will cause it to be out of sync with Earth’s time to orbit around the sun. According to CGP Grey’s video – What is a Leap Year? There will be one day off every ~8,000 years. And a length of a day isn’t consistent either, as one of the respondents mentioned. (Events such as Earthquakes etc) And even the video mentioned that a day will be 0.001 seconds slower every 100 years.

In Conclusion, there’s no way to really answer this question, since a length of a year can change by definition or by physics matters. All we can get is a close enough answer that is precise enough for you, but it’s basically impossible to get the exactly correct answer, unless if technology advances enough to develop a new calendar or to calculate the exact time that the earth revolves around the sun.