Feb 17, 2012
— read in fullDo we need leap seconds?
Jan 19, 2012
You might never have noticed that leap seconds exist - and depending on the results of a meeting in Switzerland, they might not do for much longer.
A leap second is an extra second added to the official time. They are used because the Earth usually doesn’t take exactly 24 hours to turn. The difference adds up over the years and the time we measure gets out of sync with the turning of the Earth. Adding a leap second gets the two matched up again.
However, leap seconds can cause problems. Lots of technology, such as navigation systems, relies on keeping track of the exact time, and leap seconds can make them go wrong. For this reason, some countries want to get rid of them and make every day exactly 24 hours long.
To begin with, it would be hard to notice the difference. In the 30 years since leap seconds were introduced, there have only been 25, so even after decades the time on the clock would only have slipped out from the rotation of the Earth by a few minutes. But without a system like leap seconds, over hundreds of years night and day wouldn’t match up to the time at all.
The next leap second is due at 23:59:60 on the 30th June, making the last minute of the day 61 seconds long.
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