A lot of people felt like 2016 was one of the longest years of their lives. While some people think of this as an over exaggeration, there may be some scientific basis behind this feeling. Experts have recently revealed that 2016 was actually just a little bit longer due to a phenomenon known as a leap second.
While most people are familiar with the concept of a leap year, a leap second is a concept seemingly less popular. If the number of hours in a day were multiplied by the number of minutes and then by the number of seconds, the result would reveal that a day consists of 86,400 seconds. However, this is only an estimate, as it actually takes around 86,400.00183 seconds for the earth to rotate around its axis.
While .00183 seconds does not seem like a lot of time, it would actually amount to a second every 18 months. This explains why 2016 was longer by a second. However, the question remains: why don't the people in charge just add an extra second to avoid all this hubbub and confusion?
This was actually done way back in 1874, but a problem arose because the Earth is in a constant state of change, US News reported. An occurrence known as "tidal friction" happens when the gravitational pull of another celestial body is strong enough to strain the orbit of the Earth. This amount of strain is not constant and as a direct result, "a leap second" is not constant in value and cannot be predicted ahead of time.
"Leap seconds are needed to prevent civil time drifting away from Earth time. Although the drift is small - taking around 1,000 years to accumulate a one-hour difference - if not corrected it would eventually result in clocks showing midday before sunrise," Peter Whibberley, a senior researcher at NPL's time and frequency group, stated in an interview with the Telegraph.
The concept of the leap second has been around since 1972. This means that 2016 was the twenty-seventh time that an extra second or a leap second has been added to a year.
Watch a more detailed of the leap second below: