[LEAPSECS] drift of TAI

[Rob Seaman]

On Sep 15, 2008, at 8:42 AM, John Cowan wrote:


> Rob Seaman scripsit:

>

>> I'm not sure I want to encourage this thread :-) but the answer is

>> precisely that you are positing a human enterprise.  Merely by

>> referring to "civilization", you are conjuring vast webs of

>> connections to natural cycles at all scales.  Even in an extreme

>> "Caves of Steel" scenario, the troglodyte trillions are locked to

>> diurnal cycles of solar power stations and the daily cadences of

>> robotic combine harvesters to feed the buried billions, and even

>> commerce with other star systems points to the rhythms of other suns

>

> That's what the author of "The Caves Of Steel" called planetary

> chauvinism.


I was referring to the Asimov novel - agoraphobe detective and his  
positronic partner.  Asimov's fiction is firmly located in the so- 
called hard SF realm of nuts and bolts and the laws of physics.  No  
blood dripping Frazetta princesses on the covers of Isaac's books.  It  
is precisely this common sense world view that was required of the  
creator of psychohistory.  (Although I'm not sure wikipedia will serve  
to preserve civilization through the coming collapse :-)

In both his fiction and nonfiction, Asimov focused on human needs in a  
technical context.  This is heart and soul of issues like timekeeping,  
systems of units and mathematical notations.

Rob