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Will the definition of the second be changed?

Earth Science Asked by pdh0710 on February 6, 2021

(Please excuse my English)

A well known fact about Earth’s rotation(around its axis) is that the rotation is slow down due to the tidal friction. And because of it, the length of Day is slowly increasing.
Originally, the definition of Second(time) was derived from the day length and Earth’s rotation. The original definition of the second was 1 day / 24 / 60 / 60 = 1 day / 86400. However, the modern definition of the second is derived from the atom’s oscillation period, for precise time keeping, independent of Earth’s rotation, because of irregularity of Earth’s rotation. Thus, compared to the original definition, the modern definition of the second has rigidly fixed value.

My question is : Someday in future, the length of a day will be longer than 86400 atomic seconds. Then what should future human do?
Changing the definition of the second will lead to incredibly complex situations. Also changing the definition of the day will cause tremendous complex situation.

One Answer

Someday in future, the length of a day will be longer than 86400 atomic seconds. Then what should future human do?

Having a time standard that works well with the ever improving capabilities of physics and having a time standard that stays in sync with the Earth's rotation are at odds with one another. One solution is to continue to do what we do now.

The length of a day is already longer than 86400 atomic seconds. Every once in a while a leap second is added to keep time as measured by the rotation of the Earth in sync with time as measured by an atomic clock. To date, 37 leap seconds have been added since 1972. This concept will continue to work, at least for the next few to several hundred years. Eventually the Earth's rotation rate will have slowed to such an extent that the leap second trick will no longer work.

Will the definition of the second be changed?

Almost certainly.

Scientists will eventually find something that is even better than is the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the cesium-133 atom as a timekeeping device. That science advances is what science does. It has already been proposed to use pulsars rather than atomic clocks as a more precise timekeeping drive. One thing is certain: The second will not be redefined to be 1/86400 of a day.

Answered by David Hammen on February 6, 2021

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