New Year came a second late...

Hello All
I know its late to share this piece of information with you... but yet its worth reading!

True. It is indeed a fact. Incredible, unbelievable but that is the real! Anyone who cared to observe keenly would have noticed that on 1 January 2009 at sharp 5:30 a.m. IST one extra second appeared! After 5:29:59 a.m. we had 5:29:60 a.m. and then 5:30:00 a.m. In normal circumstances 5:29:59 a.m. should be followed by 5:30:00 a.m. There is no time called 5:30:60 at all! Such addition of a second is called ‘leap second’, very similar to addition of a day in the leap year. This was done because; sharp at 5:30:00 a.m. it was 24:00:00 at Greenwich Mean Time. In the clock at Greenwich, 31 December 23:59:59 p.m. was followed by 23:59:60 and then moved on to 0:00:00. So at precisely 23:59:60 at Greenwich, England, on New Year’s Eve, there was a one-second void before the onset of midnight and the start of the New Year.

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