Leap Second May Be On the Chopping Block (ieee.org)

szotz writes: The days of 61-second minutes may be coming to an end. The World Radiocommunication Conference is meeting for nearly the entire month of November, and one of the hot-button issues is what to do about the leap second. The addition to UTC is supposed to keep atomic time aligned with Earth's rotation, but past leap seconds have caused server crashes, and some are worried that future problems could be even worse. Going into the conference, it doesn't look like there's much of a consensus on what to do. One official is expecting weeks of debate.

Comments

Circadian rhythm

[tepples]

We let "one year" drift enough that it only needs to be corrected once it's off by a whole day. Why not let [86,400] seconds accumulate and have a second leap day every hundred thousand years or so?

Because sunlight levels over a day control more recurring human biological processes, such as alertness, than any natural phenomenon with a year's period.