‘Seconds in a Year’ Riddle: Answer to Viral Riddle Explained

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Anew riddle is trending on social media that asks how many seconds there are in a year. But the riddle is a little trickier than you might think at first glance. Here’s a look at the riddle and the corresponding answer.

The riddle typically reads in a very simple question form:

How many seconds are there in a year?

Sometimes the riddle reads in a slightly different version:

How many seconds make a leap year?

Seems like a fairly simple question, right? Well, as if many riddles, there’s a trick. Are you ready for the answer? Read on to learn the answer to this riddle that’s making the rounds on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.


Here’s the Answer

The answer is 24.

The riddle isn’t literally asking for the seconds (like 60 seconds in a minute) in a year, but the number of “seconds,” which would be numbers like January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd, etc. Some might stop and say the answer is 12, but it’s actually 24 because each month also has January 22nd, March 22nd, etc. The answer is the same if the question is for a leap year, because a leap year just means February has 29 days instead of 28. The seconds are still the same.

However, if you took the time to calculate the number of seconds in terms of 60 seconds per minute, then that answer should be accepted too. In that case, you’d multiply 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 (or 366 if it’s a leap year.) In a non-leap year, the answer would be 31,536,000. So if you went through all that trouble, your answer should count too.

This riddle has actually been around for quite some time, but it’s now circulating again on social media thanks to people sheltering at home more often during the coronavirus outbreak. So if you think the riddle sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you have heard the riddle before at some point in your past on social media. But even all these years later, it’s still successfully tricking people and causing them to pause and think twice about the answer.

This is just one of many riddles that are circulating on sites like Facebook and Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic. If you’ve seen the “How Many Ducks Do You See?” riddle and were stumped, check out Heavy’s explanation here. If you ran into the “I Met a Man on London Bridge” riddle and have no idea what the man’s name is, you can find the answer in Heavy’s story here. The answer to the “You Enter a Bedroom” riddle is here, and the answer to the “Can You Open the Lock Using These Clues?” riddle is here.

If you’re looking for the answer to the “Hotel with 100 Rooms” riddle, it’s here. The answer to the “State Without an A” riddle is here. The answer to the “How many letters are in the answer?” riddle is here. And the answer to the “Penny Has 5 Children” riddle is here.

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