A resolution to stop adding leap seconds by 2035 passed by 59 member states beep and others at the General Conference on Weights and Measures. This meeting is held approximately every four years at the Palace of Versailles, France.
This was stated by the head of the Bipm weather department, Patrizia Tavella AFP extension that the “historic decisions” would allow for “a continuous, uninterrupted flow of running seconds caused by irregular leap seconds”.
“The changes will go into effect by 2035,” he said via email sciencealertMonday (11/21/2022).
A leap minute?
The seconds have long been measured by astronomers analyzing the Earth’s rotation. However, the emergency atomic clock ushered in an era of much more accurate timekeeping. On the other hand, the Earth’s slightly slower rotation means that the two times are out of sync. Earth’s rotation is not synchronized with atomic clocks.
To fill the gap, leap seconds were introduced in 1972 and 27 seconds were added at irregular intervals (last added in 2016). Under the proposal, leap seconds will continue to be added as usual for now.
“However, by 2035, the difference between atomic and astronomical time could grow to values greater than one second,” said Judah Levine, a physicist at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. AFP extension.
Negotiations will be held to find proposals by 2035 to determine that value and how it will be managed. Levine says it’s important to protect the weather UTC because it is managed by the “world community effort” in BIPM.
GPS time, a potential rival to UTC set by atomic clocks, is managed by the US military “without worldwide oversight,” Levine said.
One possible solution to this problem is to let the difference between the Earth’s rotation and atomic time add up to one minute. It’s hard to say exactly how long it will take, but Levine estimates between 50 and 100 years.
Instead of adding leap minutes to the hours, Levine proposed a “kind of blot,” in which the last minute of the day takes up two minutes. “The clock’s progress slows down, but it never stops,” he said.
