Our planet has a time problem – and it may be about to get weirder
Every second counts in a high-paced, high-tech world. Except when it shouldn’t.
The 28th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in Versailles in October is expected to settle a debate over whether we should be so pedantic about our measures of time, putting the future of the leap second to a vote.
If the members’ opinions are any indication, coordinated universal time (UTC) will be adjusted by adding an hour as needed, rather than tweaking time by nickel-and-diming it each year.
Fundamentally, our planet’s spin is the problem. It’s just not as consistent as we’d like. With melting ice, shifting wind patterns, and changing tidal forces redistributing Earth’s angular momentum, our planet’s rotation can change speed by more than a second each year.
This won’t affect your beauty sleep, but if left unchecked, it just might confuse global systems that coordinate their actions with split-second precision based on the...
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