Mobiles and computers will become useless: Will computer programs crash gadgets like smartphones, negative leap second, the earth is already spinning faster

Auther: Neeraj Singh

The speed of rotation of the earth has now increased. That is, the earth is now completing one rotation on its axis in less than 24 hours.

The days have started getting shorter. Gadgets like computers, mobiles, if negative leap seconds are introduced to compensate for the time, then these gadgets can crash.

In such a situation, today we will tell in the explorer why the earth is rotating so fast? What is the reason for this? Will it be any advantage or disadvantage?

Question 1: Before reading the full news, know what is a leap second?

You all must know about leap year. Like every 4 years 1 day is added. Similarly, sometimes there is a need to add 1 second. Like leap year, it is called leap second.

It takes 86,400 seconds or 24 hours for the Earth to rotate 360 ​​degrees. But on its axis, it starts to wobble due to gravity, due to which it takes less than a second to complete the rotation. If this time is measured accurately, then it is actually equal to 86,400.002 seconds.

Every day these keep accumulating 0.002 seconds and in a year about 2 milliseconds are added. In this way a full second is made in about 3 years, but it is such a short time that sometimes it takes a long time to complete.

Its effect is that its coordination with International Atomic Time (IAT) gets disturbed. To correct this, the time of clocks is corrected by adding 1 second many times.

Question 2: Now know that how fast the earth is rotating?

June 29 was the day of less than 24 hours, that is, the shortest day ever. On this day, the Earth completed this rotation on its axis in less than 24 hours i.e. 1.59 milliseconds (a little more than one thousandth of a second). At the same time, on July 26, the Earth completed one revolution 1.50 milliseconds ago.

According to the Independent's report, the speed of the Earth's rotation on its axis has increased. Even in 2021, the speed of Earth's rotation was fast, but no new records were made during that time. In 2020 too, Earth had set the record for the shortest day since the 1960s. That year on July 19, the day was 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours.

Question 3: What is the reason for the fast rotation of the earth?

If we look at it over a long period, the speed of the Earth's rotation is slowing down. According to scientists, every century the Earth takes a few milliseconds more time to complete one revolution. At present, no clear reason has been given for the acceleration of the Earth's speed, but some scientists speculate that changes in the Earth's inner or outer layer, sea, tide or climate change may be the reason.

> Some scientists say this may be due to the Chandler wobble, a small deviation in the Earth's axis of rotation.

Question 4: Will it have any advantage or disadvantage?

According to the report, if the Earth continues to rotate at a faster rate, then a new negative leap second will be needed, so that the speed of the clocks can be adjusted according to the sun.

Large losses are also being feared from the negative leap second. This can cause disturbances in the clocks of smartphones, computers and other communication systems. The Meta Blog report says that while leap seconds can be beneficial for scientists and astronomers, it is a dangerous tradition that has less advantages and more disadvantages.

This is because the clocks go to 23:59:60 after 23:59:59 and then start again at 00:00:00. This change in time can crash computer programs and corrupt data because this data is saved with a time stamp.

Meta reported that if a negative leap second is added, the clocks will go straight after 23:59:58 to 00:00:00 and this can have disastrous consequences. International timers need to add drop seconds to solve this problem.

America's big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have demanded to end the leap second, calling it dangerous.

Question 5 : How many times leap second has been added till now?

Corned Universal Time (UTC) has been created to eliminate the difference between Solar Time and Atomic Time. Attempts to reconcile this have been going on since 1972. Earlier time was decided on the basis of the motion of Sun and Moon.

If leap seconds are added it will not be the first time. The UTC based on which clocks around the world run has been replaced by leap seconds 27 times. In fact, until a few years ago, it was thought that the speed of the Earth's rotation on its axis is decreasing.

This was assumed until 1973 after calculations done with the atomic clock. After this, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) started adding leap seconds, which was done for the 27th time on 31 December 2016.

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