January 2038 facts
While investigating facts about January 2038, I found out little known, but curios details like:
In 2038, we will have another Y2K-style software issue with dates, as 32 bit software can't represent time past Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond that will be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as Friday, 13 December 1901
The 2038 Problem, a computer science problem theorized to be worse than Y2K. 2038 day will occur on January 19th at 3:14:07 UTC, when the number of seconds since the clock started (January 1st 1971), passes the maximum integer in 32 bits (2^31).
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 19 of the best facts about January 2038 I managed to collect.
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About the 2038 problem. A technological glitch that after 03:14:07 UTC, January 19, 2038, clocks on various devices will revert back to December 13, 1901.
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The Year 2038 problem, where systems that wrap their UNIX time counters and storing it as 32-bit signed integer will reach its maximum capacity (2,147,483,647 seconds after 1 January 1970), the number will wrap around to become -2147483647 and will mean 13 December 1901 on these systems
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At 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038 we will face the 'Y2K bug' again
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On 19 January, 2038, at 03:14:07 UTC, 32 bit systems will run out of memory and reset to zero.
What is true about january 2038?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
About the 2038 problem. A Y2K like coding issue where some computers (using 32 bit Unix time) will be unable to count time past 03:14:07 UTC on the 19the of January 2038.
On January 19, 2038 the Unix Timestamp will cease to work. Millions of applications will need to either adopt a new convention for time stamps or be migrated to 64-bit systems which will buy the timestamp a "bit" more time. - source
On 19 January, 2038. At 3am, Unix aka "Computer time" in 32bit will stop working. - source
32 bit programs may stop working 2038 because they will run out of numbers. And that it’s because they’ve been measuring the seconds since January 1st, 1970.
It is predicted that at 03:14:07 on the 19th of January 2038 there will be a global computing error similar to the Y2K bug which currently has "no universal solution".
By 2018, 32 bit systems won't cope with dates and time and by January 19 2038, these systems will be wiped.
