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Holidays 2023
December 18, 2023
Tikalon is on a year-end
holiday. The next
article will be posted on Monday, January 5, 2024.
A baryon decuplet Christmas tree.
The Ω- was discovered at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1964 as a consequence of the symmetry of baryons.
This discovery confirmed the quark model that proposed the classification of hadrons through a symmetry named SU(3).
(Animated GIF created using Inkscape and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). Click for larger static image.)
Our upcoming year, 2024, is a
leap year containing the extra day, February 29, 2024. Such days are added to keep the
calendar mostly
synchronized with the
astronomical year and
seasonal year. It would not be good to really have
Christmas in July, although
global warming might soon make it seem that way.
While leap year days do an excellent job at such synchronization, the last day of some years contains a
leap second for more
precision. The
Earth's rotational rate varies slightly because of changes in the Earth, itself, but this change cannot be
predicted.[1] The
International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), decides about mid-year of each year whether to add a leap second at year's end, and the IERS has decided that there will be no leap second in 2023.[2]
References:
- Leap Seconds FAQs, Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
- Leap Second Announcement, IERS Rapid Service/Prediction Center, U.S. Naval Observatory
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