Saturday, March 6, 2010

leap seconds?

I have a problem with the practice of adding a leap second to the day because of the slowing of the earth's spin. The second is not just added to the day, it is also added to the year. But the year is not getting longer; only the day is. Can someone explain to me why my simple analysis is wrong?

In my thinking, the formula for leap days, normally every four years but excepted to at certain intevals and double excepted to on occasion, needs to be periodically revised to correct for the changing ratio of days to years.