This is StarTalk.

Welcome to StarTalk All Stars. I'm your All Star host of the evening, Bill Nye.

And in this episode of All Stars we're honoring Sir Isaac Newton, who's birthday quickly approaches.

He was born on December 25th, 1642, as reckoned in Britain.

So we took your questions about inventions and ventors, inventories and scientific discoveries.

Isaac Newton, I'm here by the way with Chuck Nice.

Thank you. Hi. The charming and enchanting.

Now Chuck, you know it was Christmas Day as reckoned in Britain.

In Britain. But it was the 4th of January and Italy.

Yes. And you know that's because it's like, you know, it's a time zone thing, right?

You know, it's a little like right now. It's complicated. Right now it may be what time is it here? Currently 130.

And so you know, it's not that central time. Right. So what happened is the say what you will about the Vatican, the Catholic Church, they had some outstanding astronomers.

Right. And they realized that if you had a leap day every four years, and definitely you're adding too much time. Right.

And you may recall that so out of hand did it get that Pope Gregory the 13th declared the 5th of October to be followed by the 15th of October.

I remember that well. It was a while ago. It was a little while ago, but I remember it. That's just like it was, you know, 1572.

So the thing is, just imagine how this went down. So you're a tenant.

And the landlord says you owe me rent today. No, I don't know. Oh, you were rent for a week and a half. No, no.

It says today. Pope said it today. Think of the conflict. That's some serious government.

Yeah. But if you are on the other hand, if you're a farmer, an agriculturalist, and you start doing everything a week and a half late, because you're just looking at the calendar, then things are messed up.

We'll hear him big trouble. If you don't harvest when it's harvest time, they've got a lot of rotten corn out there. Yes. Or you planted too late.

It's even worse. Yeah, it is. So the Pope was so powerful. How powerful was he? He threw out 10 days. And then they had this brilliant thing that they just thought deep thoughts about.

We were talking about this before the show. And if those of you who aren't hip to this hipness, it's amazing.

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