COSEE Ocean Systems: News
Meet the world's director of time
Description: The responsibility for ensuring we all keep the right time rests with Dr Dennis McCarthy, the world's director of time. Over the course of thousands of days, changes in the rate of spin of the earth can result in the earth's rotation getting "out of sync" with the high-precision atomic clocks that we use to keep the GPS system. McCarthy monitors the effects of small variations in the earth's rotation and adds or subtracts "leap seconds". [Source: BBC News]
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7759281.stm
Availability: Full Text
Source: BBC News
Publish Date: 12/2/2008
Reading Level: Basic
Page Length:  

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