时钟今天将显示出11:59:60——时间之神添加的闰秒。
Airlines, trading floors and technology companies are braced for chaos today as world timekeepers prepare to add a leap second to global clocks.
世界钟表今天要给全球的钟表加一“闰秒,因此航班、交易所、科技公司正在为即将到来的混乱备战。
Immediately before midnight, dials will read 11:59:60 as clocks hold their breath for a second to allow the Earth's rotation to catch up with atomic time.
为了使地球自转和原子时间吻合,午夜的前一刻,时钟将会凝滞一秒,表盘将会因此显示出11:59:60。
When the last leap second was added in 2012, Mozilla, Reddit, Foursquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon all reported crashes and there were problems with the Linux operating system and programs written in Java. In Australia, more than 400 flights were grounded as the Qantas check-in system crashed.
上一次添加闰秒是在2012年,当时Mozilla, Reddit, Foursquare, Yelp, LinkedIn和StumbleUpon都有故障报告,Linux操作系统和Java编程也出现了问题。澳洲航空的安检系统崩溃导致澳大利亚超过400架航班取消。
Experts at Britain's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) who will officially add the second to UK time, warned that markets which are already jittery from Greece could suffer transaction delays if their software was not prepared.
英国国家物理实验室(NPL)的专家将正式把闰秒加进英国时间,他们警告称,如果系统没有做好充分准备,被希腊危机搅得不堪一击的股市将会遭受交易延迟。
"There are consequences of tinkering with time," said Peter Whibberley, Senior Research Scientist in the Time and Frequency group at NPL, who is known to colleagues as "The Time Lord."
英国国家物理实验室时间和频率组的资深科研家彼得·韦博利(Peter Whibberley)被同事们称为“时间之神,他说:“如果不妥善处理时间的话,后果将不堪设想。
"Because leap seconds are only introduced sporadically, it is difficult to implement them in computers and mistakes can cause systems to fail temporarily.
添加闰秒的情况很少见,所以很难把它补在电脑里,稍有差错,系统就会暂时性瘫痪。
"Getting leap seconds wrong can cause loss of synchronization in communication networks, financial systems and many other applications which rely on precise timing. Whenever a leap second occurs, some computer systems encounter problems due to glitches in the code written to handle them. The consequences are particularly severe in the Asia-Pacific region, where leap seconds occur during normal working hours."
闰秒处理不当会导致通信网络、金融体系和其他依赖精确时间计量的应用出现不同步的状况。闰秒的出现会在修复问题的编码里引发细微的差错,所以部分电脑系统就会出现问题。而其后果在亚太地区更为严重,因为该地区是在正常工作时间出现闰秒的。
European markets including London are largely closed when the event is scheduled to occur, but the change will hit trading floors in the US, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Singapore.
包括伦敦在内的大部分欧洲市场确定闰秒将要出现后都关停了。但是这样的变化会影响美国、日本、澳大利亚、韩国和新加坡的交易所。
To make matters more complicated, stock exchanges are approaching the leap second differently, with Asian markets planning to trade as normal, while US exchanges are expected to stop activity early.
股票交易市场处理闰秒的不同策略更是忙中添乱,因为亚洲市场打算正常交易,而美国市场则计划提前停止交易活动。
Dr Leon Lobo, Strategic Business Development Manager at NPL added:"Anyone who conducts transactions with those markets when the change occurs could have a synchronization issue if they are not ready."
英国国家物理实验室的战略业务发展经理莱昂·罗博(Leon Lobo)博士说:“如果市场没有准备好,那么在变化发生时和那些市场进行交易的人可能会遇到时间同步的问题。
Many computing systems use the Network Time Protocol, or NTP, to keep themselves in sync with the world’s atomic clocks. But most are not programmed to deal with an unexpected extra second.
很多计算系统用的都是网络时间协议(NTP),以保证他们和世界原子时钟是同步的。但是大多数系统的编程无法处理这多出来的“不速之秒。
Google has even developed a special technique to deal with what it refers to as a "leap smear" and has been gradually adding milliseconds to its system clocks prior to the official arrival of the leap second. BT's speaking clock will add a second's pause before its third pip.
谷歌甚至开发了一种特殊技术来处理所谓的“闰秒,并且在闰秒正式到来前逐步在自己的系统中加入毫秒。BT的语音时钟会在报时第三响之前加一秒的暂停。
Atomic time is constant, but the Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down by around two thousandths of a second per day.
原子时间是恒定的,但是地球的自转速度每天大约会下降千分之二秒。
Leap seconds are therefore essential to ensuring civil time does not drift away from time based on the Earth's spin. If not corrected, such a drift would eventually result in clocks showing the middle of the day occurring at night.
所以,闰秒在保证民用时和自转时(依据地球自转而计算的时间)之间的一致性上起到了重要的作用。如果不更正二者之间的误差,最终会导致时钟在半夜的时候显示正午的时间。
Vocabulary
leap second: 闰秒
trading floor: 交易所
Earth's rotation: 地球自转
jittery: 紧张不安的
tinker with: 鼓捣;粗修;胡乱地修补
sporadically: 偶发地,零星地
synchronization: 同步;同时性
glitch: 小过失,差错
欧美文化:谁是"山姆大叔"?
你知道喝酒为什么要碰杯吗?
海外文化:圣诞老人的传说
咖啡文化:了解咖啡豆命名的依据
五花八门的美式派对,你知道吗?
纽约的十大绰号,你知道几个?
外国人眼中的"名牌"是什么?
辞旧迎新:美国各地奇怪的跨年方式
"南瓜节"来狂欢:恶作剧还是招待?
英国育儿账单大曝光(图)
海外文化:美国人眼中的道德观
咖啡文化:爱尔兰咖啡(Cafe Irish)的命名故事
值得中国孩子学习的美国孩子的四大优点
海外文化:盘点世界各地关于换牙的传统习俗
异域采风:英国的下午茶和6点茶
10个短句和老外轻松聊葡萄酒
异域采风:从《新娘大作战》看英美婚俗
7月6号国际接吻日:今天你亲吻了吗?
咖啡文化:卡布奇诺(Cappuccino)的命名故事
美利坚搞笑十大怪
菲利普亲王的搞笑语录
悠然闲适尽在下午茶:下午茶的来历
29岁美女当选英国最年轻市长(图)
欧洲十大知名犯罪小说作家
海外文化:传说中的吸血鬼真的存在么?
海外文化:美国家庭成员之间如何称谓?
享受生活中的点滴 回味柏拉图式的美好时光 (下)
为什么喝酒前要碰杯呢?
芝加哥的别名,你知道多少?
海外文化美国人的个性
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |