Posted by axxxr
A positive leap second is to be introduced into the international time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), at the end of December 2005.
Full Article on the Link:
The U.K's National Measurement Laboratory
Posted by brownlad007
lolzzz
do we get a extra second of sleep ?
Posted by axxxr
Yep a whole 1 second!
Posted by EastCoastStar
or an extra second of partying!
so im confused abotu one thing... all out watches and cellphones and all will perminatley be one second ahread then wont they? Watched you can fix by hand, and same with phones and everythign else, but will they update that one second?! i know i know ITS ONE SECOND @ECS chill out!! hahaha but im just curious
Posted by lastride
Wow how exciting i'm so excited wow i'm not gonna sleep now i know we are gonna have one extra second this year lol
Posted by Gigs
@ecs:
The extra second is to correct time to be the right... er... time.
(Puts on dr who hat so as to not loook like a complete ninny in this explaination)
As I understand it, because the earth does not always spin at a uniform speed, every now and again a "leap second" has to be added to the year to keep everything in check.
An american bunch whose name i forget want this abolished because atomic clocks are accurate and need to be adjusted because of this. Everyone else argues "thats fine, if you like "lunchtime" being about 6:30 in the evening one day because of uncorrected time building up" (ok that was more a bob the builder hat explaination)
Basically we never see that leap second, becauce it's there to account for a slight inaccuracy in the earths rotation.
I guess wikipedia can explain it more
Posted by carkitter
1 day = 1 rotation of the earth.
This takes roughly 24 hours as measured by a highly accurate atomic clock.
Trouble is, the earth rotational speed is slowing down, therfore leap seconds are added every now and then so that we dont eventually end up with lunchtime at 6:30pm as mentioned above.
Posted by methylated_spirit
lunchtime at 6.30 pm? That would take (meths does a quick calculation in his head) ...erm...a whole lot of leap seconds! Years, man, years!
Posted by p900 lover
so y is there 1 second added?
because the earth dont always spin around in 24 hours?
Posted by carkitter
@meths
Yup, you're right. 23,400 leap seconds to be exact.
But excusing the exaggeration for a minute, you'd see the point though. Remember, Astronomy works in the thousands and millions of years.
@P900 lover
Yes, and the gap is slowly getting bigger as the earth slows down.
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[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2005-11-16 13:27 ]