– ‘Leap seconds’ occur when scientists ‘add’ extra to keep time on Earth in line with solar day and night
– GPS systems at risk of failure due to ‘fake’ seconds
– Risk of stock market crashes
– Scientists at International Bureau of Weights and Measures call for time standard to be abolished
Mail Online
December 30, 2011
Coordinated Universal Time is what most of us think of as, simply, ‘time’.
It’s a standard agreed in the Seventies which is used all around the world – the universal time standard which dictates what time it is in every time zone on earth.
But time might be about to run out for UTC.
Scientists at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris have called for the ageing standard to be abolished – due to the fact that scientists manually add ‘leap seconds’ to keep it accurate.
The way we currently do things is not precise enough for the age of electronics, scientists claim.
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