Reuters reports that 2005 will be one second longer than usual with its final minute lasting 61 seconds! The blip is the first "leap second" in seven years and is a timing tweak being used to compensate for changes in the Earth's rotation.
The Earth's rotational time speeds up and slows down for a number of reasons (including the ocean tides), and this isn't the first time a leap second has been added to keep our time wihin 0.9 second of it. Whie it is possible to deduct a second (a "negative leap second" as it is called), all time alterations have been additions so far. The first ever leap second was added on June 30, 1972.
This time, according to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, atomic clocks worldwide will read 23:59:60 before rolling over to all zeros at the stroke of midnight, Coordinated Universal Time (the interanational standard which coincides with Greenwich Mean Time). This means that the second will affect Londoners at midnight, people on the East Coast of the U.S. just before 7:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve and those on the West Coast just before 4:00 that afternoon.
Usually, the roll over would occur after 23:59:59.
Deciding when to introduce a leap seond is the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation Reference Systems Service. An international pact dictates the preference for leap seconds is December 31st or June 30th.
These kinds of precise meansurements of time are necessary for high-speed communications systems and other modern technologies.
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