Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

Skibur1 t1_ixdh568 wrote

Meanwhile, COBOL programmer is having a midlife crisis...

37

BrickGun t1_ixdvkhw wrote

Mid life? More like end of life.

I'm in my 50s and I took COBOL in college in the 80s, but never used it in my entire coding career over the last 35 years. I know it's still out there, but even when I took the class the guys actually doing it were the age I am now.

17

WhyIsTheNamesGone t1_ixeut5g wrote

All programmers that have to maintain anything dealing with timestamps, really.

3

SweatyToothed t1_ixdlp33 wrote

Jeez, more tyranny from the members of Big Clock. Where will it end???

34

hankbaumbachjr t1_ixdl8x8 wrote

So what's going to happen when clocks diverge going forward? Will that create issues with precision or solve them? I genuinely don't understand this problem.

25

Isopbc t1_ixdt5yw wrote

Clocks aren’t diverging, the earth’s rotation changes when big earthquakes happen.

The issue would be the clock will not match the point of the sun in the sky… by a second or two.

19

Penny_is_a_Bitch t1_ixfy1eb wrote

not just earthquakes. inner earth isn't perfectly balanced, which can throw off rotation. the moon creates drag. oceans... etc, etc.

my timeframe might be off but back when dinosaurs were around, days were 22h. rotation has been slowing for a long time.

8

hellojuly t1_ixgkj8q wrote

Sun doesn’t match the clock pretty much everywhere. That’s a good enough reason not to bother with leap seconds. If the difference doesn’t balance out naturally then they can have a leap 22 seconds when it’s needed.

4

yourSAS OP t1_ixd6r4x wrote

The decision was made by representatives from governments worldwide at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November. It means that from 2035, or possibly earlier, astronomical time (known as UT1) will be allowed to diverge by more than one second from coordinated universal time (UTC), which is based on the steady tick of atomic clocks. Since 1972, whenever the two time systems have drifted apart by more than 0.9 seconds, a leap second has been added.

Leap seconds aren’t predictable, because they depend on to Earth’s natural rotation. They disrupt systems based on precise timekeeping,

Future metrologists might find more elegant ways than the leap second to realign UTC and UT1.

https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03783-5

13

Black_RL t1_ixequur wrote

Super interesting, thanks for sharing!

3

s1eve_mcdichae1 t1_ixds4i9 wrote

> Future metrologists might find more elegant ways than the leap second to realign UTC and UT1.

Or else, yolo!

6

JoJoModding t1_ixe8yre wrote

GCWM votes to just hold a leap "10 minutes" at some point in the future.

6

rockdash t1_ixg1mvq wrote

This is gonna be the cause of a lot of time travelers being hit by trains, isn't it?

5

mercoosh_yo t1_ixf1yzj wrote

Nobody told me about this vote the rest of the world took, geez.

4

MpVpRb t1_ixeuqg7 wrote

This is a good thing. Leap seconds are hard to manage accurately and cause lots of problems

2

FuturologyBot t1_ixdbiwo wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/yourSAS:

The decision was made by representatives from governments worldwide at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November. It means that from 2035, or possibly earlier, astronomical time (known as UT1) will be allowed to diverge by more than one second from coordinated universal time (UTC), which is based on the steady tick of atomic clocks. Since 1972, whenever the two time systems have drifted apart by more than 0.9 seconds, a leap second has been added.

Leap seconds aren’t predictable, because they depend on to Earth’s natural rotation. They disrupt systems based on precise timekeeping,

Future metrologists might find more elegant ways than the leap second to realign UTC and UT1.

https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03783-5

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z1wqh0/the_leap_seconds_time_is_up_world_votes_to_stop/ixd6r4x/

1

Robin_the_sidekick t1_ixeiv47 wrote

Then, how does this clock work and keep perfect time?

1

yabucek t1_ixf28zy wrote

This doesn't say a word about leap seconds. Even the most accurate mechanical clocks will drift for multiple seconds per year, so even if it was possible to know them in advance, it wouldn't make much sense.

1

r33f3rz0mb1e t1_ixdra4z wrote

So daylight savings time is also universally banned this day?

0

Hier00 t1_ixew7c1 wrote

The majority of leap seconds can be eliminated by officially changing the length of day. To an everyday person this will mean absolutely nothing. Not sure why this isn’t being considered.

−3

olearygreen t1_ixfnic9 wrote

Because it’s not predictable. It’s in the article.

1

Hier00 t1_ixfrerg wrote

That’s the minority.

−1

hellojuly t1_ixgkstm wrote

Ok, I’ll bite. Please explain the proper length of day and how it addresses the discrepancy between atomic and astronomical times.

1