24 hours and a Second Longer for June 30th, 2015
Have you ever wondered how accurate our time monitoring is?
It has been a millennia since the invention of clocks. According to Wiki, the
clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to consistently
measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units: the day, the lunar
month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been
used thousands of years ago. A sundial shows the time by displaying the
position of a shadow on a flat surface. There are a range of duration timers, a
well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with the sundials,
are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred in
Europe around 1300 with the invention of the escapement, which allowed
construction of the first mechanical clocks, which used oscillating timekeepers
like balance wheels. During the 15th century, Spring-driven clocks appeared.
Then clockmaking flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries. The next
development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum
clock. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was
the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. In 1840, the electric
clock was patented. The development of electronics in the 20th century led to
clocks with no clockwork parts at all.
He said this would mean today June 30, 2015, would be 24
hours and one second long.
Mohd Zamri pointed out that the one second bonus was due to
the slower rate of the earth’s rotation on its axis.
He said the earth’s rate of rotation was governed by polar
motion (tidal friction, core-mantle interaction) and the weather.
“These factors can cause the earth’s rotation to either slow
down or speed up thus the phenomenon ‘leap second’ is something uncertain, and
depends on the rotation of the earth,” he told Bernama, here, today.
Mohd Zamri said the one second bonus would be obtained at
the end of the day tomorrow.
In this connection, he said the International Earth Rotation
and Reference Systems (IERS) based in Paris and which serves as a watchdog on
the earth’s rotation would streamline the coordinated universal time (UTC) in
proportion to the actual rotation of the earth.
So far, according to Zamri, UTC had been increased by one
second 25 times since 1972 with the last on July 1, 2012.
Meanwhile, senior principal metrologist at the National
Metrology Laboratory, Sirim Berhad, Dr Mohd Nasir Zainal Abidin when asked
whether time, among others, on handphones needed to be manually adjusted, he
said all electronic devices would be synchronized automatically with the
network time protocol servers.
“The same goes for interconnected or networked computers,
and issues on the insertion of the extra leap second is only critical on
servers,” he said.
Asked what might happen if a server fails to function
properly tomorrow, he explained what had occurred with the same phenomenon last
June 2012 on a weekend.
“Even so, globally, about 10 per cent of the network time
protocol servers got it wrong. Most servers were fixed within an hour, but some
took a day,” he said adding that in Australia, the extra second affected flight
check-ins and hit popular websites.
“Some services are taking steps to suspend or cease
operation a few hours before and after operation. It is hard to state this
accurately because not much was reported.
“However, the problem due to the slowing down of the earth’s
rotation and leap second insertion to the UTC must not be ignored, since there
are tremendous amount of business transactions that can take place in a second.
Furthermore, transactions are not confined to a single time zone,” he added.
Feel the effects of a second already??? I think not. Though
it’s so nice to think to have your clocks as precise as possible from time to
time ;-)
Cheerio!
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