Canโt wait for 2016 to end? Bad news: Youโll have to live in it for one second longer.
At 6:59:59 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 31, 2016, weโll have a โleap second,โ where an extra second will be added to world clocks as an adjustment to keep time in sync with the Earthโs rotation relative to the sun.
โHistorically, time was based on the mean rotation of the Earth relative to celestial bodies and the second was defined in this reference frame,โ explained Geoff Chester, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Naval Observatory, which announced the 2016 leap second in July.
โHowever, the invention of atomic clocks defined a much more precise โatomicโ timescale and a second that is independent of Earthโs rotation,โ he said.
As a result, leap seconds have been added as needed at irregular intervals since 1972, to reconcile the difference between the two systems. A whopping 10 seconds were added to the clock that first year. While thereโs a chance timekeepers may some day have to subtract a second, that has yet to happen.
If we didnโt add leap seconds, eventually the celestial bodies would end up way out of whack with our Earthly timepieces. Per National Geographic, weโd face a two- to three-minute difference by 2100, and a full 30-minute discrepancy if we put off changing our clocks until 2700.
Practically speaking, the additional second should have little effect on the average personโs day-to-day life, though it is critically important for many digital systems weโve come to rely on, such as telecommunications.
A leap second in July 2012, for instance, wreaked havoc on Reddit and a number of other websites including Gawker, Instagram, Pinterest and Netflix.
Alternatively, we could just follow comedian Kumail Nanjianiโs advice and stay inside until the year meets its merciful end: