NEW DELHI: The national physical laboratory (NPL) here put its atomic clocks back by a “second” ‘on the midnight of December 31, thus delaying the New Year by one second.
This was done as per the international agreement on time keeping, says NPL in a press release,
‘A new time scale, agreed upon by international radio consultative committee, went into effect on January 1, 1972 and the first “leap second” was introduced on June 30, 1972 making it the first longest day in history.
Since then leap seconds have been introduced 14 times including the present one,
The astronomical clock based on earth/rotation around the sun is not keeping pace with the mast ‘accurate man made atomic clocks, thus necessitating 4 corrections in time setting.
The time difference between the two clock systems if not corrected will keep on accumulating thus putting day to day activities out of step with the sun.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 5, 1990
