https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... th-clocks/
A Time Scientist Watches the World's 2 Official Clocks. He Says We Need a 'Leap Minute'.
The switch could solve a sneakily huge problem.
BY TIM NEWCOMB
PUBLISHED: NOV 06, 2023 10:02 AM EST
An influential time scientist has suggested that Earth do away with leap seconds and go for a leap minute instead.
The less frequent syncing of Earth’s two official clocks would ease the stress on computers and those reliant on official time.
Gaining worldwide consensus on a solution to this problem, however, presents a pesky hurdle.
A leading scientist tasked with monitoring Earth’s two official clocks has a new proposal: the leap minute. A leap minute could erase the need for that pesky leap second added to our timekeeping every once in a while. If we let the world’s two competing clocks stray from each other for just a few seconds longer, a leap minute would only be needed every 50 years or so.
Judah Levine, head of the Network Synchronization Project in the Time and Frequency Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, is a world leader in all things time. In fact, he’s actually responsible for those leap seconds—something we’ve done internationally since 1972. He told The New York Times that replacing the leap second with the leap minute could ease so much stress in the world of exact time.
“Having to deal with leap seconds drives me crazy,” he says. “We all need to relax a little bit.”
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