Is it during a leap year or after a leap year that the extra leap second is added to the count down for the New Year ?

Also if this second was not added what would the effect be on the ultra-accurate atomic clocks.

Happy New Year all :)

Leap seconds are added to the end of the OLD year.
I remember a few of them.

Leap seconds are added to the end of the OLD year.
I remember a few of them.

Thank you Curlyben, do you know when they started ? ;)

Try this: Leap second - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second)

There were 2 seconds between 31st Dec 2008 23:59:59 UTC and 1st Jan 2009 00:00:00 UTC. Normally there is only 1. (at my new years countdown, I counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, Happy New Year!) :cool:

It has nothing to do with a leap year. Leap years have extra days.

If they werent added, then the clock would simply be out of sync by 1 second. This means that the time on the atomic clock would be off from the time as derived from the position of the sun by 1 second.

There were 2 seconds between 31st Dec 2008 23:59:59 UTC and 1st Jan 2009 00:00:00 UTC. Normally there is only 1. (at my new years countdown, I counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, Happy New Year!) :cool:

It has nothing to do with a leap year. Leap years have extra days.

If they werent added, then the clock would simply be out of sync by 1 second. This means that the time on the atomic clock would be off from the time as derived from the position of the sun by 1 second.

Thanks for the info :)