What's the buzz behind the 'leap second'

The leap second was added June 30. Since that was a week ago, it seems unlikely to be the cause of the computer problems of the last couple of days, but as a retired computer programmer/analyst, it is not impossible there was some kind of connection. Like maybe a software update done because of the leap second, that included another update that caused the problem.

Sathesh Raj, Astro Awani | Updated: July 07, 2015

There was a bit of a buzz in anticipation of the clock running down to midnight recently, on June 30th, a day which marked the end of the first half of the year,.

The transition from 23:59:00 to 00.00.00 that night was filled with some rather intriguing and perplexing thoughts – all due to a phenomenon known as a ‘leap second’.

It was feared the said phenomenon would unleash its wrath on cyberspace, wreaking havoc on financial markets and all other manner of mischief.

I have heard of a leap year but not a leap second. #Dumbfounded.

So what is a leap second and why is there a need for one?

I soon found out that it isn’t really a new phenomenon (pardon my obliviousness). In fact, the leap second has been incorporated into the timekeeping of computers around the world since 1972. #Eurekamoment

However, adding a leap second can be perilous, as seen in recent accounts.

“Last time a leap second was added, on a weekend in 2012, Mozilla, Reddit and LinkedIn all crashed. In Australia, more than 400 flights were grounded as the Qantas check-in system went down, requiring the job to be done manually,” the Guardian Science correspondent, Hannah Devlin said.

Leap seconds meddle with the software controlling huge computing systems and the internet generally isn’t up for that sort of mess.

Last time a leap second was added on a weekend 2012.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Astronomy Now, said the need for a ‘leap second’ was due to “the gravitational tug of war between Earth, the moon and the Sun” which gives rise to a form of decelerating force, leading to the gradual slowdown of the Earth’s rotation.

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