For more than half a century, international timekeepers have periodically added "leap seconds" to our official clocks to keep human timekeeping synchronized with the Earth's rotation.
However, that practice is facing imminent change. An international body in France is expected to vote on Thursday to eliminate leap seconds entirely. Instead of making frequent, minor adjustments, official timekeeping would be allowed to drift from Earth's rotation until the discrepancy reaches a full hour—a shift that would mean centuries or even millennia would pass before another major tweak becomes necessary.
While the adjustment sounds minor, leap seconds have historically presented significant technical challenges. The irregular addition of a single second has repeatedly caused disruptions for global telecommunications networks, financial systems, and software platforms that rely on precise, unbroken timing sequences.