Uncategorized

2016 to Grace Us With a Second Longer of Suffering

2016 has already been hard enough with the deaths of legendary artists Leonard Cohen, Prince, Bowie, Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher; the worsening of the refugee crisis in Europe and the war in the Middle East; and of course Pauline […]

2016 has already been hard enough with the deaths of legendary artists Leonard Cohen, Prince, Bowie, Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher; the worsening of the refugee crisis in Europe and the war in the Middle East; and of course Pauline Hanson.

It seems there is no respite from the horrors, however, as at midnight on New Years Eve, a whole extra second (known as a leap second) will be added to the world’s atomic clock in 2016.

Alan Rickman—R.I.P. Source.

A lot of us will be making copious amounts of New Year’s resolutions to better ourselves in 2017—mine are: stop comparing my body to Fight Club Brad Pitt, watch more Netflix, spend less money on erotic fiction, sleep more, and to possibly practice yoga so I don’t hate the world so much.

But with the extra second being added to the year, it seems all we really need is more strength.

Is there a bright side to a longer year? Source.

Global time is managed by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Services in Paris, which analyses the Earth’s rotations in conjunction with atomic clocks. The reasoning for the leap second is because the moon is slowly pulling away from the Earth, which is ultimately slowing the Earth’s yearly rotation—thus the extra second to accommodate for this.

Happy, Sad. Source.

Since 1972, there have been 26 leap seconds added to the atomic clocks, but so far, no leap seconds have ever been subtracted.

So this New Year’s Eve, there will be 61 seconds in 11:59pm. To accommodate for the leap second in the countdown, add a zero like this:

“…three, two, one, zero,” BOOM (fireworks).

I wish everyone an amazing New Year. While life is short, 2016 was extra long. Hopefully 2017 won’t be such a drag.

Happy New Year. Source.