World's timekeepers to vote on ditching the leap second
International timekeepers are meeting in Versailles to decide whether to abolish the leap second. The adjustment is currently used to align atomic clocks with the Earth's irregular rotation, but its inconsistency poses challenges for modern precision technologies like GPS.
Why it matters
Abolishing the leap second would simplify global timekeeping for digital infrastructure and high-precision navigation systems.
On 27 days in the past century, time has gone backwards for a second.
These extra "leap seconds" were added to keep our ultra-precise atomic clocks aligned with the Earth's slightly less reliable rotation.
But we have probably already leapt our last second.
Later this week, delegates will meet near a French palace in Versailles to decide whether to abandon the leap second for good.
In its place, if the vote succeeds, it will ask people centuries in the future to observe a "leap hour".
By traditional definition, a second is an 86,400th of a day.
But Earth's rotation is not perfectly uniform. Our 24-hour days can vary in length by a thousandth of a second (a millisecond).
There are a number of reasons for this inconsistency.
Also covering this story
One other newsroom covered this event. We read that version too.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in