3!, 2!, 1!, LEAP!, Happy new year.
Tonight we move into 2009 but the celebration this year is delayed. Because the earth is slowing down (oh noes!) every so often our official clocks have to add a second to the year. This year is graced by the leap second which will be added at 23:59:59 tonight.
Depending on how you look at it either this year is one second longer or there is one second that does not belong to any year. Either way tonight at 23:59:59 get ready to party for one second during 23:59:60! I plan on yelling "leap" and hope everyone will leap into the air to celebrate this special second.
Also I plan on having time.gov open and watching my UNIX clock since there is all sorts of confusion there.
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- Brendan Fahy
- La Mesa, CA, United States
- I am currently a student at SDSU studying Computational Science.
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3 comments:
I'm perplexed by the time at which the second is being added, and how to synchronize my own behavior with it. 23:59:59 seems an awkward time to essentially say "Hold on a second!," right as people are about to start making out left and right with one another (and themselves!). Assuming I have an atomic clock at my new year's party (and assuming the clock is spherical), should the 10-second countdown to the new year begin at 23:59:51, allowing the festivities to proceed as usual? Or should the countdown begin at the usual time and everyone in the room just waits during the last second and savors the moment?
In the latter case, I have a feeling everyone would just celebrate one second early, and I'd be the guy (read: nerd) walking around drunkenly explaining the time delay and how everyone did it wrong. Also, this scenario would likely foil my own make-out plans, as my partner would likely be on the same page as everyone else. Can I blame foiled make-out plans on the slowing rotation of the earth?
So my initial browsing of the leap second literature lead me to belive that it is indeed added at 23:59:59 which would all ruin plans, make-out or otherwise. However I am now under the impression that all of the clocks add the second at 23:59:59 GMT. This would mean that everyone should have no trouble making out with their partners unless they live in +0. So I belive that if you are looking for a destitation to take your sweetheart to celebrate the new year, the UK would be a bad choice.
That's probably decent advice, even in the absence of this whole leap second bit.
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