For years, governments have debated eliminating leap seconds, seconds added at inconsistent intervals in order to compensate for the wobble in Earth's rotation. Leap seconds prevent atomic clocks from surpassing solar time. However, critics are increasingly advocating for the elimination of these seconds.
First off, critics argue that eliminating leap seconds would allow for a more "steady" time and would strip systems such as air traffic control systems and financial markets of the hassle of having to stop their clocks for a second or two every few years. Judah Levine of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado insists that while clocks may be paused, "the world doesn't stop." Critics also reference world time differences in support of the eradication of leap seconds, arguing that leap seconds occur at varying times throughout the day based on geographic location, rendering them even more cumbersome. GPS systems do not calculate leap seconds, and leap seconds are difficult to predict more than six months ahead of time.
However, countries such as China and Canada have voiced concern regarding the elimination of leap seconds. Others worry about detaching the connection between atomic time and solar time. In fact, elimination of leap seconds would cause atomic time to advance ahead of solar time at a rate of approximately 90 seconds per century. After thousands of years, atomic and solar time would be severely disconnected from each other.
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I personally think that the governments of the world should be more focus on trying to solve world problems like poverty and global warming than a couple of seconds. Although, I believe that we should still have leap seconds as it would make the atomic clock and solar clock consistent. I understand that the elimination of leap seconds would be beneficial to air traffic control and financial markets; however, stopping their clocks for a few seconds doesn't seem to me as a huge difficult task.
I think that it is really interesting that I have never heard of "leap seconds." I didn't realize how variable time itself is, considering that our natural concept of time is, so to speak, like clockwork.
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