A Year-Long Super Bowl, or What's a Few Leap Seconds Between Friends?

In January 2012, delegates at an international telecommunications meeting in Geneva delayed a decision on eliminating the practice of adding leap seconds to atomic clocks to maintain synchronization with the Earth's rotation.

Why do they never hold international meetings in Valparaiso, Ind., or Topeka, Kan.? You can rent an entire hotel in one of those towns for the price of one bureaucrat's suite in Geneva. I forgot. They're spending our money, not theirs.

Atomic clocks keep what's called the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This is the official time of day you hear on the radio, for example. Remember radio? I didn't think so.

We add a leap second to atomic clocks roughly once each 18 months to keep them in sync with celestial time. The next one is scheduled for June 30, 2012.

How ironic is that? We adjust these incredibly accurate clocks because they're too precise.

If we stop adding leap seconds, the UTC will gradually depart from celestial time, albeit slowly. Still, I don't know if I'll like eating lunch at 8:00 a.m. in the year 11660. You say it won't matter to me. That depends on the progress of cryogenics in the next decade or two. I guess when I wake up from the deep freeze I won't know what the hell time it is anyway, so forget I said anything.

While the lunch thing might be annoying, I'm deeply concerned about the real reason for leap seconds. Our day is gradually becoming longer because the Earth is rotating ever more slowly.

You think global warming is a problem? Excuse me; they switched to “climate change” when Al Gore's apparatchiks discovered it's not getting warmer.

You think climate change is a problem? Fixing that—if it actually needed fixing—would be a piece of cake compared to speeding up the Earth's angular velocity. Our planet—and when I'm not thinking about Al Gore, I like our planet—is spinning slower all the time.

Consider this. The length of our day is increasing by 2.3 milliseconds per century due to the decrease in the Earth's speed of rotation. If I calculate correctly, our day will be 25 hours long about 1.5 billion years from now. If I don't calculate correctly, then it will happen some other time. And unlike climate change, it really will happen.

Do you remember the song "25 O'Clock", by the Dukes of Stratosphear? Who were they really? Read the answer at the end of this story.

Do you know what's responsible for the slowing of the Earth's rotation? The moon, explains Scientific Curiosities on its Facebook page. See, Facebook can be useful. While you're looking at embarrassing pictures of your friends at parties, I'm learning.

The moon pulls on the Earth, slowing it down through a phenomenon called tidal braking. On top of that, the energy transferred through this braking is transferred to the moon, pushing it away from the Earth at the rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.

Remember Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962)? He wrote a column called “Strangely Believe It!” for Mad magazine, where he once said, “Although the moon is only one 49th the size of the Earth, it is further away!"

Events such as earthquakes and tsunamis also affect the Earth's rotation. The 2004 Asian tsunami shortened our day by 6.8 microseconds, for example. I had plans for that day, and I didn't appreciate losing part of it.

But here's the deal. At some point the Earth will just stop spinning. What do we do then? I wonder if Al Gore has a plan to tackle this one. Maybe we can all walk really fast in the same direction—under government supervision, of course.

What happens when the planet stops rotating? Witold Fraczek explains on the Ezri website that a day will last a year. That means we will either get plenty of sleep or almost none. We won't look forward to going to work and staying there for almost a year. Once at work, we'll have to wait a month for a coffee break. And don't be late. Remember that your commute will take several days.

If a day lasts a year, then the Super Bowl will take even longer than it does now, if that's possible. The pre-game shows will start in March. The game will run from September into November, which is pretty strange when you consider that it's supposed to start in February. You have to remember that February is the same as 4 o'clock in the morning. You get to sleep in December, but you might not rest well after drinking beer and munching on wings nonstop for two or three months.

Then again, they might cancel the game (although there may be no way to avoid the Bud commercials and insipid halftime entertainment) due to inclement weather because, as Mr. Fraczek says, “... the sequential disappearance of centrifugal force would cause a catastrophic change in climate and disastrous geological adjustments (expressed as devastating earthquakes) to the transforming equipotential gravitational state.” I believe this technical jargon translates for the layman as, “All hell will break loose.”

But, who knows? They might be playing the Super Bowl on Jupiter by then.

The Earth's grinding to a halt is clearly a problem that's just shouting for Al Gore's attention. They've already made the movie, starring Michael Rennie, and get this, Frances Bavier. That's Aunt Bee! No word on Opie at this time, nor Floyd the barber.

The British band XTC recorded as the Dukes of Stratosphear as an homage to '60s psychedelic bands. The Dukes recorded a mini-LP called 25 O'Clock (1985) and a full-length release, Psonic Psunspot (1987).

The Dukes reformed briefly in 2003 to issue a single, Open a Can (Of Human Beans), for a charity compilation for the MS Society, The Wish List.

The 25 O'Clock album was issued again in 2009 with additional tracks.

Forward Contamination of Space: The Aliens May Be Us: We may find life in outer space someday and discover it originated on Earth. Forward contamination of space is very real, and can be as dangerous as bringing space microbes back to Earth.

The National Debt and Other Really Big Numbers: The national debt is really big. Your share is more than the price of a Chevy Volt. The universe is even bigger. That's right. There is something bigger than the national debt.

Is There Extraterrestrial Life?: Scientists are starting to believe there must be extraterrestrial life forms, and some think they've visited Earth. Some believe they're benign and others that they should be avoided. Astronomers are discovering ever more planets; one of them is likely to host intelligent life.