Today Will Be a Longer Day

... by one second.

Indeed, as we pass into the new year, mark your countdown properly. Instead of the normal 23:59:57, 23:59:58, 23:59:59, 00:00:00, 00:00:01 and so on, it will be 23:59:57, 23:59:58, 23:59:59, 23:59:60, 00:00:00, 00:00:01...

That's right, the IERS (an organisation dedicated to looking at Earth rotate) announced that this last day of 2008 will contain the leap second, inserted at the year's very last breath: 23:59:60. And considering that 2008 is also a leap year... this is indeed a very long year!

Since our Gregorian calendar is tuned according to the revolution of Earth around the sun, there bound to be some fine-tuning to be done, and this is done via the leap second. But instead of having it regularly like the leap year (once every four years), the leap second comes at irregular intervals due to the numerous factors at play. I mean, you've just gotta jolt the planet a little and the "natural clock" will be bumped a couple of milliseconds off. And just like Brownian motion, it gets kicked in random directions by many such events such that it's impossible (by today's technological standards) to predict. The leap year, on the other hand, is because Gregory and his dudes couldn't divide properly.

But I do wonder... will the countdown worldwide take this second into account? Or will they release the fireworks a second too early?