How many weeks in a year?
Mariana Holostenco June 28, 2021
Mariana Holostenco June 28, 2021
A simple mathematical calculation contradicts this number of 52.
Specifically, we know that in a common year there are 365 days. If we divide this number by 7 days in a week, we will see that it gives us a result with decimals. Exactly 52,143. That means 52 weeks and one more 1 day.
The same thing happens in a Leap year. In this type of year we have 366 days. If we divide 366 by 7 days of a week, the result is 52,286. That is 52 weeks and 2 more days.
But returning to the question "How many weeks are there in a year?", 52 is the correct answer because this is the established and generally accepted convention.
In turn, the 7-day week is also just a convention, a standard time period. It has nothing to do with anyone or anything, that's just how it was established.
In fact, the duration of all these intervals, Day, Month and Year, are conventions established on the basis of standardized approximations. But, unlike the fact that the week has 7 days, which is simply established as a convention, the day, the month and the year are really based on the duration of certain events. Thus:
Has 24 hours and represents the time interval in which the earth makes a complete rotation around
its own axis.
But, in relation to the stars, the earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. Therefore,
the 24-hour interval was accepted for standardization.
Is the time interval in which the Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth. In reality, this move happens in 27.3 days, but the convention is:
Is the time interval in which the Earth makes a complete rotation around the Sun.
This happens over 365 days, 6 hours, and 9 minutes. The convention is to consider that 3 years have 365 days
and every fourth has 366.
The Solar year represents the time interval in which the Earth makes a complete rotation around the Sun. As we have seen, this happens in 365.25 days. Precisely for this reason:
The Common years are those in which it has been established that 365 days will be considered, and the difference of 0.25 will always be added to the fourth year.
The Leap year is called this fourth year to which is added the remaining 0.25 days from the previous 3 years. Therefore, it will have 366 days.
When we have in front of us the calendar of the year that interests us, we can find out very easily if that year is a Common or a Leap one. This is because in a Leap Year February will be 29 days, unlike the Common years when it has only 28.
But what if we don't have a calendar to identify how many days February has?
In this situation we can take into account the fact that a leap year will meet the following three conditions:
We take for example the years 2021, 1992, 2000, and 1900, and apply the calculation formula in three steps:
Divide the year by 4. If it is evenly divisible then go to Step 2; If not, then it is a Common year.
As we see from these calculations:
Divide the year by 100. If it is evenly divisible then go to Step 3; If not, then it is a Leap year.
Here we can see that:
Divide the year by 400. If it is evenly divisible then it is a Leap year; If not, then it is a Common year.
From this last step we obtain the following situations:
In different cultures, the names of the days of the week derive from the names of some planets or deities and
their order may be different.
For example, while in most of Europe the week begins on Monday, in the United States or Japan the first day of
the week is considered to be Sunday.
Although it does not match the months or solar year, the week has 7 days. It seems that the Babylonians are the ones who set the 7-day week. It is interesting that, despite the inadvertencies with the astral events, these 7 days have remained the same until today. And just as interesting is that, from time to time, there are still attempts to change this number.
There are also beliefs according to which the week has seven days because God created the world in 6 days and in the seventh he rested.
Moreover, even though various other civilizations had a week consisting of a different number of days, such as the Romans had 8 and the Egyptians 10 days in a week, over time they all adopted the 7 days.
These two notions define the time intervals in which the respective activities take place. They have nothing to do with the weeks of the year in the sense that they do not represent a specific week and do not influence in any way the number of the 52 weeks of a year.
In general, when we refer to workweek, we are actually talking about 5 days and not seven. This is because in general, professional activities take place from Monday to Friday, and the weekend is free. Of course, it's not the same for everyone. There are cases in which the workweek can have 6 days and the professional activity can take place from Monday to Saturday.
In a similar way, school week is the amount of time a week spent at school. Sometimes, out of all seven days of the week, it is possible for the school activity to take place only for four or five days. Regardless of this, the week that those days are part of is called school week.
The ISO 8601 implements well-defined parameters to eliminate doubts regarding date-and-time-related data between cultures and time-zones.
According to this standard there are Long years composed of 53 weeks, and Short years, those that have 52 weeks.
Years with 53 weeks are rarer and it happens with
All other years are considered short years and have 52 weeks.
Therefore, in accordance with the rules of this standard, the following situations may occur: if December 31 is a day of:
Example:
31 December 2017 is on a Sunday, therefore is included in the Week 52 of 2018Let's stick to the generally accepted idea that a year has 52 weeks and let's make the best we can of each one.
Moreover, let's think about the fact that we have 168 hours every week. Therefore, this means that during the 52 weeks of the year we have so much time at our disposal!
In the article “168 hours each week” you'll find interesting information on a simple and efficient way to juggle the time we have at our disposal so we can live the life we want.
