The American contribution is the largest. The result is the exact time. A man with two watches is never sure. Humanity is now a species with one watch, and this is it. The absolute reference has shifted from the stars to the atomic beams in their vaults.
Particles are steadier than planets.
The Earth shivers ever so slightly. With the oceanic tides acting as brakes, the planet slows in its rotation by fractions of a second each year. These anomalies do matter, in a time-gripped age. Most often, leap seconds are inserted at the close of December 31. The descendant of the Naval Observatory's old Gumelastic rubber ball drops, studded with light bulbs, in Times Square.