No. But the Earth has sped up a bit, so they're less necessary than at some times in the past. And we're on schedule to change them to be some kind of bigger,

No. But the Earth has sped up a bit, so they're less necessary than at some times in the past. And we're on schedule to change them to be some kind of bigger, yet-undecided adjustment (perhaps a whole minute) before the year 2035 comes to a close. If we move to leap-minutes, the Earth will do whatever it does, and it is expected that we'll be able to run on atomic time for a period of decades or perhaps even a century before we need to make another adjustment like we've done with leap seconds in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second#Phase-out_and_future_of_leap_seconds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second#Phase-out_and_futu... --- edit: Yeah, I see that your edit covered this adequately. No worries. :)