The Geek Brewery

I read about this news in Reuters.

Several hours from now, we will all be ending 2008 — greeting a new year. But hey, we won’t be greeting a New Year at 12:00 midnight and 0.0 seconds. 2008 is extended by one second!

Unlike other leap years in which we add another day to a year, 2008 is something different — a leap second is added. This is a result to the gradually slowing rate of  spin of the Earth along its axis.

Countries around the World will be injecting the leap second on the last second of 2008 in UTC (December 31 2008: 23:59:59 UTC). The decision was made by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, an international body responsible for adding or removing a second to the World Time based on the Earth’s rotation.

The latest injection of a leap second was last December 31 of 2005. Leap seconds can be injected on the end of the months June or December.

Anyway, how do we describe the time during that instant? December 31, 2008, 11:59:60 pm?

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