Meta is fed up with one artificially inserted second causing massive disruptions to the internet and has come up with a plan to put an end to it.
What is a Leap Second? | National Geographic
The extra tick, known as a leap second, was first identified in 1972 as a way to keep clocks in sync with the Earth’s actual rotation. Computers have a hard time processing the leap second, causing all sorts of problems trying to make sense of the anomaly, sometimes throwing the internet and other connected systems into disarray. Engineers at Meta recently blogged about their intention to build momentum to eliminate the leap second, arguing that it causes more problems than it solves.
“Time in computing is the basis for a shocking amount of critical infrastructure, so precision is essential,” Patrick McFadin, Vice President of Developer Relations at DataStax, told Lifewire via email. “Daylight saving time, leap years, and leap seconds all break the linearity of time.”
The need for the leap second arose because the Earth's rotational speed is somewhat irregular. Since 1982, 27 leap seconds have been added to the world's common clock, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to keep it in sync with solar time.
