How we’ll add a leap second to 2016

Computers and phones will know what to do.

The world keeps track of time in a bunch of different ways, many of them completely irrelevant to most people. The overarching standard that computers synchronize to is called Coordinated Universal Time. It’s (confusingly) abbreviated as UTC, which doesn’t really stand for anything. This is the result of a compromise between the U.S. and France, who wanted to call it CUT and TUC respectively so the acronym would make sense in their own languages. Instead, we have UTC. This feels like a metaphor for something.

… internet-connected computers all over the world synchronize to UTC through a process called network time protocol. Basically, sets of ultra-precise atomic clocks placed at strategic points around the globe keep the most accurate time we’re capable of keeping. Those reference clocks tell a set of computers what time it is every second to maintain a reference time. Periodically, another set of computers asks the reference computers what time it is. Those computers tell the next set of computers what time it is, and so on until the correct time propagates throughout the entire internet. They can also all check with each other to make the system as fast as possible, thus keeping every single computer in sync. Your computer is checking the UTC periodically using this network time protocol, even though you don’t notice it.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.