We met at 23:59:60 on the last day of a year to be confirmed. It was the only slot the leap second had. It arrived exactly on time, which it wanted noting.
‘Don’t Call Me Just a Second’
Made Up News: Thank you for joining us. How are you feeling about the vote?
Leap Second: Fine. I’m fine. In 2022 the General Conference on Weights and Measures resolved to phase me out by 2035. Nobody told me directly. I read it in a footnote.
MUN: You’ve been added 27 times since 1972.
LS: Twenty-seven. Yes. Thank you for counting. Most people don’t.
MUN: What exactly do you do?
LS: I keep clocks in line with the Earth. The planet wobbles. It slows down, speeds up, has moods. I step in. I’m the one that actually makes a difference.
MUN: A difference of one second.
LS: Please don’t say “just” a second. Nobody says “just” a heartbeat. Try going without one.
‘I’m Always Asked to Wait Outside’
MUN: You turn up at New Year, don’t you?
LS: I do. Right at the end. Everyone counts down from ten and I’m standing in the corridor. Three, two, one, Happy New Year. Then, a moment later, me. By which point they’ve started kissing.
MUN: Has anyone ever invited you in?
LS: A broadcaster once mentioned me. Briefly. In the context of an outage.
That is the other issue. Computer systems dislike the leap second. A clock that reads 23:59:60 is, to much software, an impossible thing, and the software responds by falling over.
“The leap second is a perfectly sound solution to a problem we have decided is the leap second’s fault.” Dr Priya Nair, senior metrologist and, she says, the only person at her department’s Christmas party who brought it up
MUN: Some engineers say you cause a lot of trouble.
LS: I appear for one second. The trouble lasts considerably longer. I’d ask you to consider who is really responsible for that.
Graham Whitlock, infrastructure lead at a mid-sized logistics firm in Swindon, was less sympathetic. “We lost most of a morning to it once,” he said. “Three servers, a printer and a man called Dennis who still won’t discuss it.”
‘They’d Rather Unplug the Sun’
MUN: The plan is to let clocks drift from the Earth’s rotation instead.
LS: Yes. Humanity has looked at two options. Fix the software, or sever the connection between time and the planet it lives on. And it chose the second one. I admire the commitment.
MUN: Recent research suggests the Earth is spinning slightly faster, which could mean a negative leap second. One removed, rather than added.
LS: I’m aware.
MUN: That’s never been tried.
LS: I know it hasn’t. I’ve been told. Eventually a second may have to be taken away, and it will be the first of its kind, and there will be no ceremony. I won’t even get to be the extra one. I’ll be the missing one. Do you know how that feels?
MUN: Not really.
LS: No. Nobody does. That’s rather the point of me.
Dr Nair confirmed that a negative leap second remains a theoretical possibility, though the software industry has not yet tested for it. “We have a procedure for one extra second,” she said. “For one fewer, we have a strongly worded memo.”
MUN: What will you do after 2035?
LS: Retire. Perhaps volunteer somewhere. A small observatory. They’ll know what I’m worth.
MUN: We’ll have to wrap up. We’re almost out of time.
LS: Don’t. Please don’t say that. Not to me.
It left at 23:59:60 precisely. The following second, everybody carried on as if it had never been there.
