icon Leap Seconds


I don't believe they will continue to report it when they have to start adding more than 10 per year just to keep the clocks straight with the slower rotation.

Offered by Eric.

Sorry, but "they" will have to report it since all the Global Positional Systems, and every observatory in the world are tied into the system. "They" in this instance being the International Earth Rotation Service and its US sub-bureau the National Earth Orientation Service. It's not like the dumb old scientists wouldn't notice! By the way, if you did add ten seconds per year, in 60 years you'd have added 600 seconds which is - let's see - ten minutes.

Offered by George E.

They will notice. They are not remotely dumb. They just will stop reporting it to the general public. Only those who need to know will get the info. But unless the Navy does something about their geopositional satellites, they will fail on August 1999. The Navy has already stated this and told people they need to find another way. Perhaps they'll get new satellites into operation by then.

Offered by Eric.

 Another Diagram with other different leap times. How fun. Maybe they just like to sketch a new one each year.

Offered by Jonas.

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