Actually, I'm fairly certain that the number of days in a solar year us
365.2422. A leap year every 4 years makes for an average year 365.25
days long, while skipping a leap year every hundred years (not two
hundred) makes an average year of 365.24 days. And then, every ten
years or so, astronomers delay midnight on New Years' a few seconds to
keep things accurate. Unfortunately, there's the added problem of the
fact that the length of a day increases by a second every three hundred
years (because the tides slow down the Earth's rotation). But the
astronomers (hopefully) stay on top of it.
Oh, and your Y2K method works fine for systems that can be briefly shut
down. But what about the regulator computer at the power plants? They
can't just shut it down and start pretending its 1900--do you have any
idea what a simultaneous five-minute power outtage across the entire
time zone would DO? For starters, every hospital in the region would
probably shut down... A definite problem.
--Jed Blue
