Tomorrow at midnight time will stop momentarily to allow for an extra 'leap second' to be added to 2008, so that time remains synced with the earths rotation. Atomic clocks rely on oscillations of caesium atoms to keep time and are therefore extremely accurate. In 1972 Global commerce started to use this as the basis for setting it's clocks by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Unfortunately earth's rotation is not so reliable and other things such as shipping and aircraft navigation rely on UT1 time, which divides one rotation of the Earth into 86,400 seconds. Due to the earth's spin slowing down, the two systems are gradually getting out of sync.
Apparently adding of the leap second is not as easy as it sounds. This is what New Scientist has to say about it.
Unfortunately earth's rotation is not so reliable and other things such as shipping and aircraft navigation rely on UT1 time, which divides one rotation of the Earth into 86,400 seconds. Due to the earth's spin slowing down, the two systems are gradually getting out of sync.
Apparently adding of the leap second is not as easy as it sounds. This is what New Scientist has to say about it.
In theory, adding a second is as easy as flipping a switch; in practice, it rarely works that way," says Dennis McCarthy of the US Naval Research Laboratory, which provides the time standard used by the US military.Most likely to be affected are IT systems that need precision of less than a second. In 1998 - two leap seconds ago - cellphone communications blacked out over part of the southern US. Different regions of service had slipped into slightly different times, preventing proper relaying of signals.So now you know, if something weird happens on New years day you are not entering the 'Twilight Zone' it is just the leap second causing trouble.
17 comments:
Cripes! I'll let my Dad know: he has a collection of hundreds of clocks!
By the way, nice picture of the astronomical clock in Prague. Did you take it yourself (knowing your excellent photographic skills, I presume so), or is it a photo you found on the net?
thanks for telling us that. I'd not have known. Now I can look out for it.
Damon - That clock collection sounds fascinating!
Thanks for your comment on my photography skills :-) It is a cropped view of one of my original photographs. The original photo showed two clock faces.
James - Let me know if you find any odd happenings!
That's very interesting. I did not know that. :)
Does it mean we will all be a second older? How will it affect my microwave, which is my main 'clock'... ? all very worrying.
I have translated your latin on my blog comments, I am a bit worried I may have got it slightly wrong. If you get a chance could you pass by and 'mark' it?
Uber - I didn't know either until I read the article in New Scientist.
Mutley - I don't know if they took your microwave into consideration or not... I will be over soon to check out the translation!
leap second, Fairy ??? oh la la it's for that i'm all barely and tomorrow it will be worst !!!
well, i was already nuts anyway ;-))))))))))))))))))))
love you, my Friend !!!
a Magical 2009 !!!
Golly Miss Molly, is this another problem like year 2000? I hope it passes as uneventfully.
Happy New Year to you CherryPie. May it be all that you wish for.
I'll expect the worst! I hope you have a wonderful New Year. Take care.
Happy New Year Cherie!
Luisa - Yes a magical leap second ;-) :-) xoxoxoxox
JMB - Yes it does seem to have much like the expected millennium problem! Happy New Year to you too :-)
Ellee - I hope you have a wonderful new year too xx
Jams - Happy New Year to you too xx
I cannot believe with the human rights violations being conducted by the US and UK, that the Guardian Comment Is Free is asking readers what they plan to do with the extra second of 2008!
Jools Holland accommodated it very well in the customary 10 seconds coutdown "5,4,3,2,1 add another one".
Whilst I appreciate your view that the one second might have knock on effects, and the Guardian might be struggling to be entertaining, I think that there are more serious issues that the Guardian should be covering.
JHL - I thought Jools did it well too!
I do totally agree with you the main stream media including the Guardian, don't report on what is really important. But then they are constrained by the government and commercial reality! I think that is where bloggers come in and I from experience I know local newspapers can have an effect too.
In my post I was only trying to portray the scientific aspect of the leap second!
Cherrypie: No criticism was levelled at you covering it, I just got a bee in my bonnet over the Guardian's silly 'what are you going to do with the extra second?'. In the grand scheme of things, I felt it was a waste of space. For me I thought the Defence Secretary John Hutton deciding to ignore the ECtHR decision over the fate of two Iraqi prisoners deserved that space. The UK signed up to the Convention and should honour this. I am worried that this precedent may be used to deny prisoners the vote.
JHL - I agree I think the papers do publish a lot of pointless rubbish. I tend not to read them these days and keep up to date with news via other sources.
Interesting article about time. I found your site while googling "rotation of clocks". I'm trying to prove my theory that clocks rotate "clockwise" purposely... so they don't adversely effect the anti-clockwise rotation of the earth. Otherwise millions of clocks all going the same way as the earth might make it speed up.
Anonymous - An interesting theory. I have seen clocks that rotate backwards, with the numbers the other way round too. It is very difficult to tell the time with them as you are so used to seeing them the other way round.
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