Wednesday, December 28, 2005

start planning now

We get an extra second on 31 Dec 2005.
A post on C|Net news states:
The precision of atomic clocks will be reconciled with the relative variability of the Earth's rotation on Dec. 31, when an extra second will be added to the Coordinated Universal Time used to tell time across the globe.

The Earth's rotational speed changes slightly because of tides and other forces, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology recalibrates its clocks occasionally to match them to the planet's time, called the astronomical time scale. The adjustment, called a leap second, takes place whenever Coordinated Universal Time is out of synch with the planet's time by more than 0.9 seconds.

On Dec. 31, Coordinated Universal Time will change from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 before moving to 0:00:00 on January 1.

The last time we had an extra second was 1998. So start planning now for how you are going to use this valuable extra time. You can use a program like adjust time to make sure your time is accurate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think I will blog it away...should He Tarry!