If you think about leap years, it may seem like humans have a very odd way of measuring time. Sometimes, timekeepers even have to add extra seconds to clocks.
Articles on Leap second
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The majority of nations voted to scrap leap seconds – the little jumps added to UTC time to keep it aligned with Earth’s rotation. What can we expect moving forward?
The length of a day has critical impacts on our technologies, navigation, and more.
2016 has been a long year, but it’ll be made slightly longer care of a leap second. But why do we need such things?
We will get an ‘extra’ day this year, February 29. Where do these quadrennial liberties with our calendar originate?
Keeping time isn’t easy, particularly as the Earth’s rotation is slowing down, so we need to keep adding troublesome leap seconds.
Top contributors
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Professor of Computer Networking, University of Technology Sydney
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Research Scientist in Astrophysics, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Physics and Analytics, University of the Pacific
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Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania
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Professor of Polar Geodesy and ARC Laureate Fellow, University of Tasmania
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Professor of Physics and Astronomy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences