ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Auld(er) Lang Syne

Bad news for those who think 2008 can’t be over soon enough: A leap-second will be shoehorned in between the last second of 2008 and the first second of 2009. Space.com explains:

 

By international agreement, the world's timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world's irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009. 

 

The extra second, ordered by the world's nominal timekeeper, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, will be marked officially at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday in Greenwich, England, the home of what is popularly known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) -  Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to the more technically inclined -  the standard time for the planet.

 

So at precisely 23:59:60 at Greenwich, England, on New Year's Eve, there will be a one-second void before the onset of midnight and the start of the New Year. Wednesday will see the 24th Leap Second that has been needed since the practice was initiated in 1972, and will be the first in three years.

Posted by The Stiletto at December 29, 2008
Categories: On The Cutting Edge
 

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