BBC News - Changes to the world's time scale debated

BBC News - Changes to the world's time scale debated: "This week, scientists at the Royal Society are discussing whether we need to come up with a new definition of the world's time scale: Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

And the main issue up for debate is the leap second - and whether we should abolish it.

The leap second came into existence in 1972. It is added to keep the time-scale based on atomic clocks in phase with the time-scale that is based on the Earth's rotation."

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