Because the Earths rotation speed varies in response to climatic - TopicsExpress



          

Because the Earths rotation speed varies in response to climatic and geological events, UTC leap seconds are irregularly spaced and unpredictable. On June 30, 2012 at 23:59:60 UTC we all got an extra second. Since the new millunimum weve had 3 extra seconds. Since 1972 weve had 35. All due to the slowing and uneven rotation of earth. Leap seconds is problematic in computer programming. To compute the elapsed time in seconds between two given UTC past dates requires consulting a table of leap seconds, which needs to be updated whenever a new leap second is announced. Moreover, it is not possible to compute accurate time intervals for UTC dates that are more than about six months in the future. Welcome to our world of little details.
Posted on: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:49:13 +0000

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