Things that happen every second (part 2)

This year, New Year's Eve will last slightly longer than a normal New Year's Eve, because the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service have decided that this New Year's Eve will include an extra 'leap second'. This is because geological and climatic factors mean the Earth's rotational speed varies by microscopic amounts, so to keep things precise, an extra second is added to the clock every now and again.

If you're thinking of discovering time travel, think again!

It may seem a bit OCD to worry about miniscule changes of only a second, especially when dealing with an object as big as the Earth, but in actual fact a second can be a very significant period of time. A lot can happen in a second, as you can see from the following list of facts.

Every second...

1) ... 49,515 Google searches are made.


2) ... 0.29 Google searches are made for...
'Star Wars'.


3) ...0.0000076 Google searches are made for...
'Dinosaurs were made up by the CIA to discourage time travel'.


4) ... 41,667 facebook posts are posted.


5) ... 9,531 tweets are tweeted.


6) ... $615 of toys are purchased in the US.


7) ... $22 of Star Wars toys are bought in the US. No wonder George Lucas Disney is so rich!

7 lego sets are sold worldwide every second.

8) ... 7 lego sets are sold worldwide.


9) ... lightning strikes the ground 44 times at various points around the world.


10) ... 0.22 meteorites weighing over 100 grams enter the Earth's atmosphere.


11) ... the Earth's weight increases by 1.16 kilos due to intercepting dust-sized micro-meteoroids.


12) ... 3,160 tons of water flows over Niagara Falls.


13) ... 100,000 chemical reactions take place in every blood cell of your body.


14) ... 86,938 kilos of food are eaten worldwide.


15) ... 43.4 calories of food are eaten per 1,000 people in the US.


16) ... 18.4 calories of food are eaten per 1,000 people in Eritrea.


17) ... 418 KitKat fingers are eaten worldwide.

This is just one of the 418 KitKats which are eaten every second.

18) ... 3.1 comic books were sold in North America in 2015.*

* Paper copies only.  Digital copies not included in figures.  See the Comichron website for more in-depth figures regarding comic book sales.


19) ... 0.0169 copies of Grandpa's Great Escape* by David Walliams were sold in the UK during each second of 2015.

* The second best selling book of 2015 in the UK.


20) ... 0.0000127 copies of books by Charles Fudgemuffin are downloaded!

Footnote: The figures in this article were accurate as of 2016, but may have changed slightly in the intervening years.

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Finally, here's a quote on the importance of making the most of time...

"At the end of your life, you will never regret not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a wife, a friend, a child, or a parent."

...and I'll personally also regret accidentally selecting the wrong font colour for this sentence!

You can find more things which happen every second in my original blog post:
Every second counts!