Slashdot Mirror
No More Leap Second?
WerewulfX writes "CNN reports: "In a phenomenon that has scientists puzzled, the Earth is right on schedule for a fifth straight year." Update yeah, this is a repost. Whatever- it's a holiday. Nothing else to post :)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The Earth has the uncanny ability to heal itself.
Actually, 1024 bits is 128 bytes, not 1, nor 1000.
With global warming, won't the radius increase, affecting this calculation?
Regards,
--
*Art
CNN Says:
For 28 years, scientists repeated the procedure [of adding a leap second]. But in 1999, they discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind.
Um, not exactly true. Not every year over the last 28 years has had a leap second. For example, 1984, 1986 and 1987 didn't have a leap second. It's generally determined if a leap second is necessary about 6 months ahead of time by IERS. However, this is the first 5 year gap of no leap seconds.
It's interesting to note that the "leap second protocol" permits a "reverse" leap second - meaning a "short" minute. This is because the folks involved in defining the leap second realized that the rotation of the earth is not 100% predictable, and therefore they theorized that there could be a "fast spinning year" that would merit the loss of a second. This hasn't happened yet.
This whole rotation-of-earth-isn't-constant idea is pretty new (50 years). So just because we have a 5 year period of smaller rotaional speed deltas isn't totally unexpected.
Every time you bother to suggest something to CmdrTaco, he'll either never reply or respond with a really nasty, sarcastic e-mail.
Taco really abhors change that isn't his. Especially if it's something that's already implemented elsewhere (i.e., Kuro5hin), they'll claim it "doesn't scale well."
Slashdot is behind the times. Its userbase has become a joke of groupthink and trolls, and the editors don't even read their links or posted stories anymore. It still has the momentum of a large fanbase, however, which just increases the stupidity because we have all these mistakes happening in front of a huge readership.
"Sufferin' succotash."
To make the world's official time agree with where the Earth actually is in space, scientists in 1972 started adding an extra "leap second" on the last day of the year.
"Where earth actually is in space"?
As HopeOS said when the previous article was posted:
"Leap seconds, as pointed out, are an entirely different beast, and are meant to shore up the discrepency between our actual rotation and the atomic clocks we use."
That's why. This has nothing to do with rotations around our sun, just around our own axis.
At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth's orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia.
Assuming this is true and this is the actual news here, the reporter (and the writer of the other article) shouldn't have started talking about leap seconds in the first place since these aren't added to compensate for that.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The person who modded me redundant gave me a good laugh, because I can't tell if they got the joke or really thought that it was redundant in a bad way.
Tricky shit, my friend. Tricky shit.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.