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A Second Here a Second There May Just Be a Waste of Time

By KENNETH CHANG Published: January 18, 2012

On Thursday, the world will go to battle over a second.

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In Geneva, 700 delegates from about 70 nations attending a meeting of a United Nations telecommunications agency will decide whether to abolish the leap second.

SHARE Unlike the better-known leap year, which adds a day to February in a familiar four-year cycle (with a few well-defined exceptions), the leap second is tacked on once every few years to synchronize atomic clocks the worlds scientific timekeepers with Earths rotational cycle, which, sadly, does not run quite like clockwork. The next one is scheduled for June 30 (do not bother to adjust your watch).

The United States is the primary proponent for doing away with the leap second, arguing that the sporadic adjustments, if botched or overlooked, could lead to major foul-ups if electronic systems that depend on the precise time including computer and cellphone networks, air traffic control and financial trading markets do not agree on the time.
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This atomic clock in Boulder, Colo., is said to be among the most accurate in the world.

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Abolishing the leap second removes one potential source of catastrophic failure for the worlds computer networks, said Geoff Chester, a spokesman for the United States Naval Observatory, the nations primary timekeeper. That one second becomes a problem if you dont take it into account.

But Britain, along with Canada and China, would like to keep the current keeping system, arguing that, in the 40 Like the science desk on Facebook. years that leap seconds have been gracefully inserted in our midst most recently in 2008 there have been no problems to speak of, and the worriers have greatly exaggerated the potential for havoc. Remember Y2K? Its the devil we know, said Robert Seaman, a software engineer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. While he is an American, he is also a member of another group leery of the change: astronomers. If a software-guided telescope is not pointed in the right direction, it may not capture the right image, and updating software could be a sizable task. Defenders of the leap second would like to retain the quaint notion that the definition of a day has something to do with the rising and setting of the sun. Since the 1950s, the world has run on two sets of clocks. One is the ticking of atomic clocks, defined by the precise frequency that electrons jump around in atoms. The other is based on the traditional notion of a spinning Earth. If the leap second is stamped out, the astronomical definition of time will diverge from what is dictated by the atomic clocks, about a couple of thousandths of a second a day, growing to a minute over the course of a century, and someday thousands of years from now noon will strike at sunrise instead of when the sun is overhead. The problem is a distinctly modern one. Only a few centuries ago, people set their watches by the clock in the town square, and the time in each town was different from the next. That mattered little, since there was no need or ability to communicate with anyone elsewhere in the world. Railroads changed the situation, creating the need to set crosscountry schedules. This in turn led to the creation of time zones, synchronizing time across large swaths. But the length of a day and a second remained tied to the rotation of Earth. In 1967, the nations of the world changed things around, creating a new definition of a second based on atomic clocks and pegged to the length of an astronomical day in 1900. But Earth, like any spinning top, has slowed down since 1900, and the time between sunrise and sunset has grown longer. Atomic clocks now run slightly ahead of what is defined in the sky, and, starting in 1972, leap seconds have been added to keep the two sets of clocks synchronized. A panel of experts at the International Telecommunication Union, an arm of the United Nations, began discussions eight years ago, but could not come to a consensus to keep or get rid of them. The United States and Britain have been butting heads over the issue over most of that time. What it decided was to give the baby to the higher levels, said Franois Rancy, director of the unions radio communication bureau. Discussions are continuing between the United States and Britain, and Mr. Rancy said he hoped the two could finally come to a consensus in the hours before that agenda item is reached. But if necessary, the proposal to eliminate leap seconds would be put to a vote of the delegates. In a poll conducted by the union last year, only 16 nations expressed an opinion. Thirteen would abolish leap seconds. Three wanted to keep them. If approved, the recommendation would still have to be ratified by a larger meeting next month. Regardless, there will be one extra second to enjoy this summer. The change would not take effect until 2018. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: January 20, 2012 Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about disagreement among countries over whether to abolish the leap second omitted an element of the leap year cycle. The leap year adds a day to February in a familiar four-year cycle, as the article noted except in century years not divisible by 400. Thus, although 2000 was a leap year, 2100 will not be. The article also misidentified, in some editions, the point at which noon would strike at sunrise if the leap second is eliminated. That depends on the rate at which the Earths spin slows down, which is not precisely predictable. Whatever the timing, the event would occur many thousands of years from now, but probably not more than 100,000 years from now.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 19, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Second Here a Second There May Just Be a Waste of Time.