Owen was quite excited to share some news with me from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
It is datelined Paris, 06 July 2026 and is addressed “to authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time.”
The main thrust is as follows:
“NO leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026.”
In fact, the General Conference on Weights and Measures has decided that leap seconds will be discontinued by 2035, so this announcement may the first step in that direction.
Leap seconds bridge the difference between time based on atomic clocks and time based on Earth’s rotation. So the two will drift ever further apart in the coming decades.
The addition of leap seconds was previously deemed necessary because Earth’s rotation was slowing down, but in recent years it has started speeding up. This raises the spectre of negative leap seconds.
To you and me, this may mean nothing, but for Information Technology systems, this could be quite disruptive. I have to wonder, though, if they leaving the problem for future generations to solve.
I also have to wonder why this has Owen so animated.