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The future of the world’s time is being debated at a meeting in Switzerland.
Experts at the International Telecommunication Union are deciding whether to abolish the leap second.
This is an extra second that is added every few years to keep time measured by atomic clocks in sync with the time based on the Earth’s rotation.
Countries such as the United States, France and Germany want to lose the leap second, but the UK, along with China and Canada, wants it to stay.
The world’s timescale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), is based on the time measured by atomic clocks, which use the incredibly regular vibrations in atoms to count the seconds.
But these clocks are so accurate, they put our former timekeeper—our planet—to shame.
The Earth speeds up and slows down as it spins, which means that while one rotation is one day, some days end up being a few milliseconds longer or shorter than others.
As a result, leap seconds were established in 1972 to keep the time told by atomic clocks and the Earth’s time in phase.
Dr. Felicitas Arias, director of the time department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Paris, said: “When leap seconds were defined, this was a request from maritime navigation—and today maritime navigation can use other ways to access rotational time.”
Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist in time and frequency at the national Physical Laboratory, in Teddington, UK, said: “A decision to stop using leap seconds to keep UTC aligned with mean solar time would be perhaps the most fundamental change to timekeeping for hundreds of years.
“For the first time, civil time worldwide would be based purely on man-made clocks and no longer tied closely to the Earth’s rotation.”
This could cause some long-term problems.
Over decades, the difference between Earth-based time and atomic clock time would amount to a few minutes, but over 500 years, they would be out by an hour. Over millennia, the discrepancy would grow even more.
The British Science Minister David Willetts said: “The UK position is that we should stick to the current system used throughout the world.
“Without leap seconds we will eventually lose the link between time and people’s everyday experience of day and night.”
-bbc.co.uk, 18 January 2012
This is not science fiction, but true earthly based science. This split second is causing quite a stir among the nations. David Willetts expresses his concern by saying that without the leap second, “we will eventually lose the link between time and people’s everyday experience of day and night.” Will this happen? Here is what the Bible says about the ultimate destination of time, “And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer” (Revelation 10:6).
(For more on the last days, read Revelation 13: Satan’s Last Victory, Item 1067, $11.95.)
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Wednesday, 08 February 2012 00:00
SWITZERLAND-To Abolish or Keep the Leap Second
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