Geek 29 Jul 2005 04:14 pm
Leap second
Someone in a mailing list mentioned that 2005 will have a leap second on 31 December, just before the year ends (ABC has a nice report about this). This means that the minute starting at 23:59:00 on that day will have 61 seconds (23:59:57, 23:59:58, 23:59:59, 23:59:60, 00:00:00).
This is caused by the rotation of Earth slowing down, and is not that uncommon; the last time we had a leap second was in 1998.
In any event, this gives geeks an amusing little thing to do on new year’s parties: try to convince as many people as you can to count “…4, 3, 2, 1, 1, happy new year!”.
It may not work, but you will get lots of geek points by trying.
