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It could be debated that June 30 was the longest day this year, but I bet no
one noticed.
According to NASA, because of the Earth's gradually slowing rotation,
the last minute of Tuesday, June 30 contained 61 seconds instead of the usual
60. So atomic clocks around the world read 23:59:60 before switching to
00:00:00, the beginning of Wednesday, July 1.
The discrepancy arises because the Earth's rotation is not always predictable.
For one thing, the interaction of the Earth with the gravitational
forces of the moon and the sun mean it's gradually slowing down. In fact,
leap seconds, as they are named, could occur more frequently in the future.
This is not an unusual thing. We have had to add 25 leap seconds since
1974. They work the same as an extra day would during a leap year. June 21
was technically the longest day of the year because of the summer solstice
where the sun reached the northernmost point of the equator giving us more
sun light but June 30 was the longest 24 hour day (plus one added second).
It would take a very long time for us to even notice the sun rising later than
expected if leap seconds weren't added. It would be around 500 years or so.
We add this leap second every few years so the UTC or Universal Time doesn't
get out of whack without conception of time based on sunrise and sunset.
So what did you do with your extra second? Did you get in a micro-nap,
since it will be happening around midnight? Did you get to watch an extra
second of a television show or commercial? Did you happen to get or give
an extra squeeze during a hug from a loved one? I hope you made the most
of it because it was gone in the blink of an eye (actually a blink of an eye
takes 300 to 400 milliseconds or 1/3 of a second).
These leap seconds don't occur that often. The last leap second was added
on June 30, 2012. During that time sites like LinkedIn, Foursquare, Reddit
and Yelp experienced technical glitches after web servers had difficulty handling
the extra moment.
If the Internet did shut down, just take a breath and enjoy it. After all, you
still have this newspaper and you got extra seconds of your life for free.