[LEAPSECS] nails in the coffin of mean solar time

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <4C4F28FE-007C-4C52-9F1E-8B93B0CF6C8F at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>> Changes to, including abolishment of, leapseconds will only affect

>> people who measure positions of celestial objects with high precision.

>

>One cost is the uneven burden of remediation to those who would be  

>definitely affected by this redefinition of universal time.  ("GMT  

>may be regarded as the general equivalent of UT.")  Astronomy would  

>indeed be facing a very large unfunded mandate merely to retain our  

>current functionality.


As I have said before: if astronomers played their hand wisely,
they'd say "We can live without leapseconds if you give us $N to
handle the transition", they might be able to get some nice
upgrades to instrumentation out of this.


>I used the subjunctive "would", above, for the cost to astronomy  

>since this only kicks in when the policy actually changes.  At some  

>point the cost of the DUT1 inventory will kick in merely at the  

>report of a possible change to the definition of UTC.  I suggest that  

>the precision timekeeping community should bear the cost since it is  

>their actions that will have triggered it.


This sounds more like sour grapes or a sore looser than anything
else: "Those pescy atomic clocks stole our thunder- Waaaah!"

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