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It’s about time, isn’t it?
It is the time of the year again and the world is changing or not changing time. Something to do with saving light during the day. It is a source of confusion, disruption and never-ending discussion about what time is better to follow.
I would like to provide a little bit of insight. This is especially for people who say ‘Why would you make such a big deal of moving an hour forward or backward?’ Particularly, dealing with time inside a computer is quite a challenge.
Consider a simple question and answer:
Q: How long is it going to take you to do this?
A: A day.
When you say ‘day’, do you mean 24 hours? Or do you mean from this moment to the same moment the next day? What’s the difference?
Due to the Earth slowing rotation around the Sun, every so often we have to add Leap Second. When that happens you see the clock going from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 to 00:00:00.
The statement 24 hours is 86,400 seconds is correct. The statement a day has 86,400 seconds is incorrect, it is roughly 86,400 seconds + 500 µs.
If your comment is ‘Does this 500 microseconds really matter?’, remember the quote ‘Time is money’ especially when we talk about GPS, mobile networks, electricity distribution or when it comes to High Frequency Trading…
