posted in Technology

Scientists just voted to redefine how the world keeps time

Today an international group of scientists, diplomats, and timekeepers voted to end the leap second, which has been keeping Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) aligned with the time according to Earth’s rotation (UT1) within one second of difference.

A new system, called the “leap hour,” will allow the Earth’s rotation and official time to fall out of alignment by a full hour

www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-vote-to-end-leap-seconds-redefining-how-the-world-keeps-time/

Replying to @⁨ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net⁩

I feel like the “problem” here is that we won’t remember to do this in 6000 years, and the habit of doing it each leap second keeps us maintaining time, whereas the leap hour will just fall into forgotten history.

So essentially I feel like with this announcement, scientist are basically saying “balls to this, we’re done here”.

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