EDN reports on the phenomenon of this year’s New Year’s countdown. The governing bodies responsible for keeping track of time – itself an abstract – have concluded that one additional second will be added to this calendar year:
Aside from the traditional ballad “Auld Lang Syne,” the 10-second countdown might be the most iconic aspect of New Year’s Eve. On December 31, 2016, metrologists around the world—especially those living under Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)—will add a single second to their New Year’s Eve countdown. International timekeepers have decreed, after some debate, that the atomic clock is due a leap second.
I knew we have added seconds to our timekeepers in the past, but I was unaware of how frequently this has occurred – 36 seconds have been added just since 1972!
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