If a program is supposed to perform the Y function 100 milliseconds after X occurs, a whole extra second thrown into the mix is worse than a ghost in the machine. They can malfunction for various reasons. Computer programs and servers run on protocols that tell them what to do and when. The company fixed the error promptly but had to issue an apology to its customers for the inconvenience. A negative value was recorded for one of its Domain Name System (DNS) servers that should have been zero at most. Web security company Cloudflare faced a similar issue during the addition of a leap second in 2017. When the Linux systems ran the social news and discussion site Reddit in 2012, it could not accommodate an added leap second.

Most of that risk is related to machines and how humans rely on them to be accurate. Related: How Web3 Could Change How You Use The Internet Because of this, it has fallen out of favor with those who believe messing with time is a risky business. Although 27 times in 50 years cannot be considered a regular occurrence, that occasional adjustment has been enough to wreak occasional havoc on systems many rely on.

In the fifty years since that first adjustment, the same process has been completed 27 times. Adding leap seconds was a purposeful deviation from International Atomic Time (TAI). The Earth's rotation has been slowing gradually in the last million years.

That was the year the International Earth Rotation Systems Service (IERS) decided to add an extra 'tick' to the world's clocks to keep them in sync with the Earth's rotation around the sun, which it does 365.25 times per year. Oddly enough, the leap second isn't as old as time.

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