[LEAPSECS] drift of TAI
M. Warner Losh
imp at bsdimp.com
Mon Sep 15 15:23:59 EDT 2008
In message: <alpine.LSU.1.10.0809151600320.30778 at hermes-1.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> writes:
: On Mon, 15 Sep 2008, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
: >
: > However, following the subsequent mathematical proof that the choice
: > of base makes no difference to any kind of math, apart from expense
: > of ink and paper to write the numbers, base-2 was left alone until
: > somebody much later got the heritical idea to drive thermionic
: > valves way pas their linear behaviour.
:
: "Makes no difference" so long as the base is uniform :-) The civilized
: world has mostly eliminated non-uniform bases, except for dealing with
: time. The Americans (and the British to a lesser extent) still cling to
: the handicap of non-uniform bases for other measurements. Still, could
: be worse: at least there aren't leap-ounces.
UTC is the best example of a variable radix system I can think of.
You count 0 to 59, except when you don't :-)
Warner
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