Note: June 2015 will be one second longer

Kaustubh Katdare · 2015-06-02T19:18:22+00:00

The month of June 2015 will be one second longer. Because of the Earth's rotation, this month is going to be longer by a second - that the midnight coordinated universal time on June will read 23:59:60 (and not 00:00:00). The extra second will be added in order to synchronise our land-based clocks with Earth's rotation. Also note that this is not the first time that a second has been added to any month. In fact, it's the 26th time since 1972 that seconds have been added to keep the sync. Those who are extremely punctual may note that because of the tidal forces between Earth and Moon, Earth is slowing down making our days longer by about 1.4 milliseconds to our days every 100 years. Just to put the things in context; the days were shorter when Dinosaurs roamed the planet. The last perfect 24-hour rotation happened back in 1820. Ever since, the day has been lengthened by 2.5 milliseconds. Are you concerned?

Note: June 2015 will be one second longer

Kaustubh Katdare
@thebigk

Updated: Oct 26, 2024

Views: 1.2K

The month of June 2015 will be one second longer. Because of the Earth's rotation, this month is going to be longer by a second - that the midnight coordinated universal time on June will read 23:59:60 (and not 00:00:00). The extra second will be added in order to synchronise our land-based clocks with Earth's rotation.

Also note that this is not the first time that a second has been added to any month. In fact, it's the 26th time since 1972 that seconds have been added to keep the sync. Those who are extremely punctual may note that because of the tidal forces between Earth and Moon, Earth is slowing down making our days longer by about 1.4 milliseconds to our days every 100 years.

Just to put the things in context; the days were shorter when Dinosaurs roamed the planet. The last perfect 24-hour rotation happened back in 1820. Ever since, the day has been lengthened by 2.5 milliseconds.

Are you concerned?

0

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Ankita Katdare

Administrator • Jun 2, 2015

Hats off to science. Accuracy to that level is amazing and... most IT engineers I know are wondering if their salaries will be increased in proportion. # FAIL 😁

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Satya Swaroop Dash

Member • Jun 2, 2015

Kaustubh Katdare
Are you concerned?
Nope.
Now we say: 24 hours in a day is not enough
10000 years later: How come 25 hours in a day is still not enough.

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Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator • Jun 2, 2015

My little understanding of time as days, hours, weeks is this:

This is time line:-
------------------------------------------
Which is independent of things (on Earth)

This is how we divide it into measurable units, as per our convenience:

-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|------.....(Infinity)
<Second><Second>

So it shouldn't matter where exactly we put those markers.

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