SQL vs Google Hours per year

Question

Which is more correct?

SQL:

select datediff(HOUR, '2013-01-01 00:00:00 AM','2013-12-31 11:59:59 PM') = 8759

Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=hours+ina+year&oq=hours+in+a+year = 8765.81

Answer 1

Here Google calculator is using the Tropical year, which is the time the earth takes to orbit the sun. If you disregard our calendar, there are 365.24 24-hour days in a year, which is useful if you want “year” to have a constant value you can use as a unit.

You probably don’t want to disregard our calendar, so there are 365 or 366 days in a year.

Answer 2

They are showing you different things.

Google is showing you the astronomical year - time it takes Earth to turn around the Sun once (matches the number from wiki).

SQL is showing you the right number, apart from the fact that you have a rounding error (because you miss one last minute). It should be 8760 which is 24*365.