Long Day Yesterday!

[karl]

Did anyone else notice how much longer yesterday was?


Some of the web's most popular sites were laid low on Sunday morning after the world's timekeepers added an extra second to the day.
Sites including Reddit, FourSquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, Gawker and StumbleUpon came crashing down after the extra second played havoc with their servers and source code.
An extra second is added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) - the benchmark time agreed internationally - every few years to keep it in line with the time as determined by the sun's rotation.


See link below for full story


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167588/Time-hiccup-caused-online-chaos-How-leap-second-brought-webs-popular-sites.html#ixzz1zSFmqDI6

[Anselmo]

In the last 40 years the day became 25 seconds longer. Earth is slowing down and one day the Earth's will face the Moon with always the same side. The same already happened with the Moon, both rotation and the period of 1 revolution around the Earth last 27 days, making the moon face the Earth with always the same side.

[Mirage]

Thanks for sharing, I found this quite interesting even though I've never heard of it. Do you know how many years until the next leap second?

[Jupiter]

That's amazing.

I didn't know that

[Incompris]

wow, you learn something new everyday

[Smeagol]

Interesting... A second causing all of that havoc? Wow...

[Jess]

that's really interesting. I never noticed that the day was longer on that day though :P

[Telkanis]

In the last 40 years the day became 25 seconds longer. And one day the Earth's rotation period will match the earth's period of 1 revolution around the Sun, making the same Earth's face facing the Sun. The same already happened with the Moon, both rotation and the period of 1 revolution around the Earth last 27 days, making the moon face the Earth with always the same face.

Sorry but this is wrong. The moon has a tidal lock with earth which is why the same side always faces us but earth is not locked to the sun so we won't have a situation where one side always faces the sun. We are slowing down but that's mostly because of our connection with the moon and at some point our rotation will equal the time to orbit the sun but that's just a coincidence and we will slow down even more and then it won't hold true anymore. Regardless, we are all going to be long dead by the time this happens.

[Cognizant]

that's really interesting. I never noticed that the day was longer on that day though :P

Same here...but really interesting to know!