Wait a Second

All things considered, I think 2008 was a very good year. So what better way to enjoy a good year than by having a tiny bit more.

From Refreshing News...

The start of next year will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone's control. Time will stand still for one second on New Year's Eve, as we ring in the New Year.

By international agreement, the world's timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world's irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009.

The extra second, ordered by the world's nominal timekeeper, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, will be marked officially at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday in Greenwich, England, the home of what is popularly known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

So at precisely 23:59:60 at Greenwich, England, on New Year's Eve, there will be a one-second void before the onset of midnight and the start of the New Year. (For folks on the East Coast that's 7:00pm)

Today many retailers market radio clocks as "atomic clocks"; though the radio signals they receive usually come from true atomic clocks, they are not atomic clocks themselves. If you own such a device, you might want to watch what your clock displays just before 0 hours GMT, Jan. 1, which corresponds to 7 p.m. Eastern standard time on Dec. 31.

The minute beginning at 6:59 p.m. EST will contain 61 seconds. When a Leap Second was added in 2005, I watched my own clock closely during that minute as the seconds ticked off. When the final second of that minute was reached, the number "59" flashed not once, but twice!

If you don't have a radio clock, you can bring up a time display on your computer by going to: http://nist.time.gov/.