So you thought you'd be able to uncork the Champagne at 12:00:00 yesterday night? wrong! This year a so-called leap-second was added to the last minute of 2008, in order for the time kept with great accuracy by the UK's National Physical Laboratory's atomic clock to stay in sync with our more intuitive notion of time: namely it's noon when the sun's at its highest point in the sky.
If we didn't add this extra second every now and then, in a few thousand years noon might end up at 1pm instead of 12pm! this is due to the fact that the rotation of the Earth around its axis is perturbed randomly by the atmosphere slowing it down, its molten core flowing chaotically, etc...
As a result, this year the timekeepers who are in charge of Big Ben had to adjust its clock to slow it by one second =)
1 comment:
pace e salute qb
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