The french probably reverted to 360 degrees in a circle, as its used everywhere, and is ubiquitous. <br /><br />Anyway, as for the 23 hr, 56 minute and some odd seconds per day, as opposed to 24...<br /><br />both are right. It just depends on what you use as your standard. If you use when the sun crosses the meridian (a line straight from north to south, passing overhead), its 24 hours. If you use when the earth faces the same point in the sky (a very distant star) you get the shorter version.<br /><br />This is caused by fact that the earth is rotating <i>and</i> orbiting the sun. As the earth goes around the sun, it has to rotate just a little bit more to face the sun than a full circle. To see this, take the extremely exagerated picture of: The earth rotates twice a year. It's facing the sun now, and goes half way around the sun. If it rotates only to face the same distant point (say any landmark in your room, besides the "sun"), the same point that faced the sun in the beginning...now faces directly away. <br /><br />In order to face the sun, the earth has to rotate a little bit more (in our exagerated version, a full 180 degrees more) which takes more time.<br /><br />In reality, the earth has to rotate for only 4 more minutes to completely face the sun again (instead of just next to it), creating the problem.<br /><br />This is corrected for, by the use of leap years in our calendar. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>