Leap Second At The End of 2005

Ruff_ilb writes "Because of the discrepency between an ephemeris second (the fraction 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year for 1900 January 0 at 12 hours ephemeris time) and the second of atomic time (the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom), we're left with more than leap years. In order to ensure that the the atomic time and civil stay coordinated, "Civil time is occasionally adjusted by one second increments to ensure that the difference between a uniform time scale defined by atomic clocks does not differ from the Earth's rotational time by more than 0.9 seconds."" And Happy New Years everyone ;)

Comments

How did you use yours?

[Chemisor]

And, of course, I already used it to read Slashdot. Oh, darn...

Re:How did you use yours?

[Yocto Yotta]

What does it matter now! I gotta reset ALL of my clocks again. Damn it.

Re:How did you use yours?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a rumor going around that ~25000 Linux boxes running a custom 2.4.22 kernel crashed over at Yahoo! because of the leap second change.

Re:How did you use yours?

[Trogre]

Silly.

They used 747s to fly the clocks above the clouds.

A cool thing to do

[rolypolyman]

If you watch carefully for that leap second, you can do a freeze-frame flying kick like in The Matrix.

Re:A cool thing to do

[rubycodez]

I didn't see anything as cool as that during the leap second, but a cat did walk by twice.

The hard way

[Anonymous Coward]

Adjusting the clock is of course the easy way to solve the mismatch between our ideal time and earth's rotation.

Real engineering solution would involve changing earth's rotation speed to match the clock. Any takers?

Re:The hard way

[MyLongNickName]

Adjusting the clock is of course the easy way to solve the mismatch between our ideal time and earth's rotation

Oh yeah? It took me about ten minutes to adjust all the clocks in my house due to the damn leap second. Multiply this by the 100 million households in the nation, and we have a very serious issue here.

I demand that George Bush pull us out of whatever God forsaken U.N. treaty that got us into this mess.

Re:The hard way

[kfg]

Real engineering solution would involve changing earth's rotation speed to match the clock. Any takers?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah Baby! Which way to dee nuclear wessels?

KFG

Re:The hard way

[jacksonj04]

My clock is set by radio and has no manual adjust, you insensitive clod!

Re:The hard way

[MyLongNickName]

Only problem is that I spend most of my time indoors,

This is Slashdot. Quit spamming us with stuff we already know.

Re:The hard way

[Fishstick]

I remember liberals at a party saying, 'let's add a second to the year' and I was the only one who spoke up against it. Why would they want to add a second to the year? Because it gives them a second longer to hate Bush.

Re:The hard way

[dotgain]

The trick for someone like you is to find someone else who does go outside, and let them take your watch for a little while. How long between signals until your watch wears runs far out of sync?

Re:The hard way

[Kjella]

Oh yeah? It took me about ten minutes to adjust all the clocks in my house due to the damn leap second. Multiply this by the 100 million households in the nation, and we have a very serious issue here.

If you have ten second-exact clocks in your house, someone has a very serious issue. If you believe 99,999,999 other households have ten second-exact clocks in their home, someone definately has a very serious issue. Besides the geeky solution is to have all of them synchronized automagically, what are you doing on slashdot?

countdown

[Anonymous Coward]

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0,-1

-Sj53

Re:countdown

[thatnerdguy]

that's one second too many

oh great

[BushCheney08]

Great! Now I hafta go around the house and adjust all the clocks again...

Damn!

[Black Parrot]

Now my clock is 121 seconds off, instead of just 120.

Thank goodness I didn't bother setting the VCR clock after the last thunderstorm.

Re:happy new year

[SpinJaunt]

More along the lines of 730 days if you include the dupes..

How did you spend the extra second?

[House of Usher]

So during the correction of the clocks and the extra second being added, what did you do? Did you ponder world peace? The latest 0 day exploits for Windows? Where Microsoft is going with the .NET platform with version 2.0? Or were most of you transfixed on Times Square watching the ball drop getting close to someone you love?

Re:How did you spend the extra second?

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally re-enacted every Italian military victory.

old news

[Viriatus]

Old news, from last year.

oh, shit.

[CAIMLAS]

Oh, shit. I've got to reset my goddamn clock again.

Great

[the eric conspiracy]

Gotta love those long weekends!

Leap Second Lovers Are Traitors Says Bill O'Reilly

[Fishstick]

"This year's leap second is an assault on the American public," says commentator Bill O'Reilly. "The reason the leap second is even being proposed is because of America Haters, because of Iraqi hate mongers, and let's be honest, Shiites. Why would you add a second to the year unless you're an anti-American hate monger?
I remember liberals at a party saying, 'let's add a second to the year' and I was the only one who spoke up against it. Why would they want to add a second to the year? Because it gives them a second longer to hate Bush.

"Look, look, look, look. A leap second is a denial of everything American, of everything good, of everything moral. They're saying we need this second because the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the earth, well this is the no spin zone. So we don't need a leap second. Though I would rather have a leap second than some of these hate-mongers who go around hating even their own ideas! They need to hate their own ideas so much that you have many liberals proposing the leap second, which is an idea that they hate, yet, they propose.

"I am so so so so upset with these people, who actually believe their ideas, yet, I have no hate in my heart. I am a simple guy, who only has my own true beliefs and a few products that are my cornerstone to fight against the leap second poobah. Let me say it aloud: Leap Second, leap second, leap second. Doesn't it sound ugly?

"Please, don't let these Darwinian leap-seconders, who believe that the planets revolve around the sun, who believe that rocks are sedimentary, igneous and stalactites, who are innocent dim-wit believers in a faith bordering on hating everything religious like trees and fruitcake, yet, who don't believe in John 7:12:45:67:89, have their say.

"But you know what I love? Dialogue. Rational dialogue which allows me to say that aliens from a Iraqi loving planet want to abolish Christmas by adding a leap second to the Darwinian anti-God year. Dialogue is what keeps the American system God-loving and anti non-God. It also keeps the anti-God loving non-Iraqi loving insurgent deniers able to voice their hideous so-called opinions over the American loving tolerant airways. And now let's take some calls."

Steve Martin

Re:Typo

[eobanb]

Double "the" in article:

In order to ensure that the the atomic time ...

No, that's a leap the.