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Re: No more leap year?
the article doesnt say that leap year is no longer needed, only leap seconds.
Leap year is requied because the earth orbits the sun every ~365 days + 6 hours. If there were no more days added to the calender every 4 years, then eventually christmas would be in july
leap seconds are needed because we defined hours minutes and seconds relative to the rotation of the earth, not its orbit around the sun. When they standardized on atomic time, the second was not exactly one day / 24 / 60 / 60 - it was slightly off - about one second per year
so if they didnt add leap seconds eventaully the sun would be rising at noon according to official Coordinated Universal Time
so the earth is spinning on its axis a little bit slower, but its not orbiting the sun any faster (not enough to make up for that 6 hours per year - that would be a huge shift!)
I heard a theory that the speed of light in not actaully a constant - as the universe expands the speed of light slows down. Since the atomic clocks are a function of the speed of light (particle physics) but the spin of the earth is not, maybe this is an indication of that?
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