Wait a Second?
It seems we will all be hanging onto 2005 for a second longer than we thought…
-
“For those of you counting the seconds until 2006, add one.
The world’s top timekeepers will insert an extra second—or leap second—just before midnight in coordinated universal time (UTC) on New Year’s Eve. (That’s the same as 6:59:59 p.m. eastern time on December 31.) UTC is determined by atomic clocks and is five hours ahead of eastern time.
Earth’s rotation is ever so slightly slowing down, but atomic clocks remain unwaveringly consistent. The extra second will allow Earth to stay in sync with the ultraprecise clocks, which mark time based on the vibration of atoms.
The planet’s slowing is mostly due to the friction of tides raised by the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon. In fact, a day is now about two-thousandths of a second longer than it was a couple centuries ago, scientists say.
To keep today’s atomic clocks synchronized with time as measured by Earth’s rotation, timekeepers insert a leap second whenever the difference between the two clocks exceeds nine-tenths of a second. ”
So for those of us, who would really like to get this year over with…we will have to wait another second.
Tags: new year, one second, 2005
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 30th, 2005 at 4:04 am and is filed under General, Just Me.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 30th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Well 2005 has been a so-so year for me but I think I can handle it being one second longer than I expected…but no more than that
So many things went ‘wrong’ this year. Losing my Dad in December was just the straw (and the whole camel thing) . Thankfully it is only a second…and not a hour or day.
~ Dawn
December 30th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Thanks for renting a spot on my blog! 2005’s been pretty good to me, so I don’t mind the extra second.
a second is, well…a second. but this has not been the best year for me, so I am more than happy to have it done and over with.
~ Dawn
December 31st, 2005 at 12:29 am
Thanks for the cool information and for your bid to rent my blog for the first week of January.
Have a Happy (delayed one second) New Year!
Thank you for renting to me! :~)
Happy New Year!
~ Dawn
December 31st, 2005 at 8:22 am
I’ll be sound asleep when the New Year rings in, so it won’t bother me a bit LOL. It’s been years since I managed to stay awake that late, but my dear hubby always wakes me up for a New Year’s kiss.
I was wide awake, I called my daughter at her friends and a neighbor, who offered to share her sardines(?)
~ Dawn