Stacy looking for midnight snack?
kek
depends on how it plays out
The Earth Just Started Spinning Faster Than Ever Before And Scientists Don't Know Why
Tyler Durden's Photo
BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, AUG 01, 2022 - 08:00 PM
Authored by Elijah Cohen via TheMindUnleashed.com,
The Earth recently completed a rotation faster than ever before at 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours, and the consequences for how we keep time have experts around the world alarmed.
It could be the first time in world history that global clocks will have to be sped up.
“This would be required to keep civil time—which is based on the super-steady beat of atomic clocks—in step with solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky,” Time and Date reported.
Scientists don’t know what is causing our planet to spin faster than ever before, but some experts fear it could be “devastating,” while others speculate the shorter days could be related to climate change, of course.
Since the Earth’s rotation has always largely been slowing down throughout time, atomic clocks have thus far only added positive leap seconds to keep up. 27 leap seconds have been needed to keep atomic time accurate since the 1970s.
However, it just emerged that on June 29, the Earth recorded its shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure its rotation, in what was only the latest of speed records set for our planet since 2020. It even came close again more recently on July 26, having completed a rotation in 1.5 milliseconds under 24 hours.
“A negative leap second would mean that our clocks skip one second, which could potentially create problems for IT systems,” the Time and Date website warned.
Meanwhile, Meta warned in a blog post last month that adding a negative leap second could have consequences for smartphones, computers and communications systems.
Citing Meta’s blog, the Independent reported that the leap second would “mainly benefits scientists and astronomers” but that it is a “risky practice that does more harm than good.”
Meta also warned that by adding a negative leap second, clocks will change from 23:59:58 to 00:00:00, and that this could have an unintended “devastating effect” on software relying on timers and schedulers.
“The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers,” Meta said.
This is due in part to the fact that time moving forward is seen as a constant in most technological systems.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/earth-just-started-spinning-faster-ever-and-scientists-dont-know-why