The leap second's time is up: world votes to stop pausing clocks

[muriel_volestrangler]

The practice of adding ‘leap seconds’ to official clocks to keep them in sync with Earth’s rotation will be put on hold from 2035, the world’s foremost metrology body has decided.

The decision was made by representatives from governments worldwide at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November. It means that from 2035, or possibly earlier, astronomical time (known as UT1) will be allowed to diverge by more than one second from coordinated universal time (UTC), which is based on the steady tick of atomic clocks. Since 1972, whenever the two time systems have drifted apart by more than 0.9 seconds, a leap second has been added.
...
Leap seconds aren’t predictable, because they depend on to Earth’s natural rotation. They disrupt systems based on precise timekeeping, Macdonald says, and can wreak havoc in the digital age. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and Google are among the tech companies that have called for leap seconds to be scrapped.

The CGPM — which also oversees the international system of units (SI) — has proposed that no leap second should be added for at least a century, allowing UT1 and UTC to slide out of sync by about 1 minute. But it plans to consult with other international organizations and decide by 2026 on what upper limit, if any, to put on how much they be allowed to diverge.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03783-5

Basically, Meta and Google said "everyone codes so crappily these days that you can't rely on things running right the next time we have a leap second". Now the software to compensate for the variation in Earth's rotation will be that used for astronomy, and maybe they'll take a bit more care than Facebook, financial companies etc.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. This is the proverbial kicking the can down the road and hoping you come up with solutions

before the inherent scientific problem becomes an actual real-world problem.

If you wait 100 years and end up with 1 minute the two numbers are 'off' (or however it works out numbers-wise) you still have the same inherent problem as you do dealing with it more regularly, and in fact it'll be worse because it's a lot more 'off'.

But it buys you time to prepare for that eventuality.

Personally I think it won't matter in the least 100 years from now because the planet will be way too fucked up for anyone to care

[IbogaProject]

2. seems to be used less lately

There were 32 used the first 30 years, 72-2002, only 5 since then. Seems like it would be easier to let them add up and do a leap minute once a century.

[world wide wally]

3. As the stones say...

[hunter]

4. People can build and set their clocks however they like.

They don't even have to measure time in seconds. It's easy enough to build a clock that counts "Martian seconds" if you please. A Martian day is about forty minutes longer than an earth day, so a Martian second is a little bit longer too. It's easy to adjust a pendulum clock to keep Martian time.

Ultimately the second itself is an arbitrary unit that's not even consistent in the physical universe where it can be squeezed or stretched by gravity and relativity.

Networked computers can use one clock, earthbound astronomers and office workers can use another clock. The conversion should always go one way, from a simple count of seconds starting at some specific place and time, to geographical time which is that plus or minus a few seconds depending on the earth's rotation.

Networked computers need to stick with the simple count no matter how time drifts as measured by the earth's rotation. The Unix epoch began at 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, but it foolishly (in my opinion) accounts for leap seconds, as does the commonly used Network Time Protocol. That's what caused this mess.

I have a clock on my night stand I haven't set for almost 25 years. It's drifted about twenty minutes ahead since I last set it, mostly because it runs a little fast on its internal battery during power outages. It's a game I play, but when I look at that clock I calculate what time it "really" is in my head, also compensating for Daylight Savings time.

If I was the only person living in this house I'd probably let all the clocks drift as they pleased.