Dan's Papers -December 19, 2008 - Just One More Second

This morning, I was brushing my teeth when I heard on the radio that there is a black hole in the far reaches of the universe that has just swallowed a star that is one million times larger than our sun.

"We had not known until now that there were bodies this large in the universe," the announcer said, referring to the star, "and certainly not ones this size that could ever be swallowed up by a black hole."

I looked in the mirror and I thought, of course, well, thank goodness that is not going on around here.

Another item in the news was about the extra second that is going to be added to clocks all around the world at the end of this month. It's a big deal. The earth whirls around on its orbit and, apparently, even though outer space is a vacuum and there should not be any friction, it is slowly but surely slowing down. Scientists are predicting that the earth will even come to a halt someday - although that will surely be after my time. I just hope - this is my sort of nice last wish during my employment on the planet - that Earth comes to a halt with the western hemisphere facing the sun. America deserves the best.

The extra second is being added, of course, because the way we keep track of time has to, every once in a while, catch up. Think about it. Time marches on. But because the planet is slowing and things take longer, everything gets a bit out of whack. So we slip in an extra second now and again.

Interestingly, nobody knows until almost the last minute when it is necessary to add this second. The last time it happened was in 2005, the time before that it was in 1998 and the time before that it was in 1997. As you see, these are odd intervals.

This is very different from the extra day we add every four years to fix things that get fouled up as we circle around the sun. That extra day has been going on, without adjustment, since 238 BC, when the King of Egypt, Ptolemy III, declared that's what we should do. It happens like clockwork, that extra day. Apparently, our voyage around the sun is consistent enough so we can do that.

The reason for the difference seems to be that the whirl around on the axis is not anything you can put your finger on. It is definitely slowing, but as they calculate each year at the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service building in Frankfurt, Germany, it is slowing slower some years and slowing faster other years. Maybe every once in a while it bumps into something which slows it down as it whirls around - a plastic bottle or a piece of Styrofoam - and that affects it one way or another. Hit a deer and it's definitely an extra second. I don't think anybody really knows. Indeed, scientists are so unsure of all of this that down at the International Earth Rotation Etc. Etc. Etc., they have a second ready to SUBTRACT from the year if need be, for example, if suddenly the earth gets hit with something from behind, speeds up and the time passes faster. They keep it in a closet. But they've never had to use it.

I am not making this up.

From the beginning of time when the cavemen observed the sun going around the world, it was felt that it was pretty easy to divide everything up into seconds, minutes and hours. Stonehenge got built. It took scientists a long time to figure out what it was all about. Turned out it was a kind of sundial that proved the theory of the 24-hour day - more proof of God's benevolence.

It was, of course, a little rough around the edges, this business of the sun going around the world - weren't they surprised when they learned it was the world going around the sun - and finally, in 1970, when modern rocket science, computers and lights inside refrigerators that lit when you opened the door came into existence, it was felt that it was time for there to be an absolutely consistent and precise way of dicing time. Thus, in that year, they went off the old standard and onto a new one. Since 1970, a second has been calculated as the amount of time it took for a humble, little known atom called Caesium-133 to send out 9,192,631,770 quivers of radiation into the atmosphere. This was a steady thing, not slowing down and you could count on it.

Thus were atomic clocks born. Down in Cape Canaveral, scientists could now say with confidence that when they counted down a rocket ship on a launching pad, five, four, three, two, one, ZERO, it was exactly, exactly the same on the rocket as it was in the control room.

For a long time in the 1970s and 1980s, this exact time was transmitted by counting it down exactly over the radio to people with clocks and watches around the world.

"And now, if you'd care to set your watch, the exact time. At the tone, it will be 9 p.m."

Soon, Russian and American space satellites were launched that could beam this exact time down, not only to other countries, but also to wall clocks, church tower clocks, refrigerators, timers and even wristwatches. Most wristwatches today are hooked up by satellite to the atomic clock. It's no longer at all expensive to do.

I do have to interject here that I recall what it was like before we had atomic clocks. You'd have an appointment and because clocks and wristwatches were never the same, you'd always give everybody leeway about when they showed up. You'd show up early or late. The person you were meeting would show up early or late. Since nobody knew what the exact time was, nobody got pissed off if you were late, unless, of course, you were a half an hour late. You ought to know better than that.

If you ever watch old black and white movies from the 1930s, you see this phenomenon.

"My brother said he'd be here at 6:15," Bette Davis says, looking at the clock on the mantle which now says 6:15.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be here."

Well, those days are gone forever.

So now, here it is, about to be 2009, and after a gap of five years, we are adding this second. The earth has been good, avoiding beer cans and plastic six pack holders, pedestrians and whatever, so its been keeping near to steady a long time. The second, in sequence, will read like this.

11:59.57 p.m., December 31, 2008

12:00.00 a.m., January 1, 2009

This would seem to be an enormous job all around the world, sticking this into all the clocks. But it is not. They shove that extra second in between 59 and 00 down in Frankfurt, and it automatically shoves it into all the clocks everywhere.

We hope. What with spam, computer viruses, cookies, the speed of sound, terrorists and flocks of birds flying into airplane engines, things could possibly go wrong. But I can assure you the armed forces are on full alert just prior to and during this second. And it is expected to be inserted everywhere seamlessly.

Personally, I don't have any plans for this extra second. I keep a busy schedule and try to always have something to do. But here comes this extra second. And I have no plans. Neither does, it seems to me, anybody else. There's no special on TV for that time, or a sporting event or some lecture or show. I think we've all been caught off guard. Who knew it was coming? There's been no time to plan.

Maybe the best thing to do is this.

It's approaching midnight. Stand up, hold up a glass of champagne and lead everybody in the countdown chant.

TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, ONE ZERO!!! WELCOME TO 2009.