Computers are handy, yes? But when it comes to slight adjustments, like say, adding a second in time to make up for such earthly events as our planet’s slowing rotation, they’re not so flexible.
We’re in a “leap smear” year, according to Paris-based International Earth Rotation Service. According to Techie News, Earth is “slowing down at the rate of around two thousandths of a second per day.” To keep us on track with atomic time, the IERS will pause clocks on June 30 for one second. It’s a tactic that is great for keeping us on time with the universe, but also tends to wreck havoc with today’s modern computer systems.
Google has engineered a fix for that. To counter the additional second, Google is gradually adding milliseconds to system clocks before then. It’s a slight trick to get computers to think they’re right on track, rather than freaking out and thinking they’re repeating a second. June will now have 86,401 seconds.
IERS and Google are hoping that by adding the second they’ll avoid the computer crashes that came with the additional second added in 2012, which caused meltdowns with Reddit, Foursquare, Yelp and LinkedIn. An increase by a second has happened 25 times since 1972, but is becoming a larger issue as more computers are syncing with atomic clocks.
Oddly enough, the United States says a leap smear disrupts our navigation and communication systems, including financial transactions, but the UK is a fan because it preserves Greenwich Mean Time, the moment the sun crosses that line. Either way, it’s all pretty cool, right?
