[LEAPSECS] Reliability

[Rob Seaman]

To return to a previous point, Tony Finch wrote:


> Note that there's no need for global co-ordination. Each country (or  

> county) can change when it is convenient for them. The effect would  

> probably be a shifting of timezone boundaries in lumps and bumps  

> that averages out to the overall DUT1 drift.


Some requirements (in general, the most important ones) apply to the  
results of implementing a system, not to the manner of implementing it.

These spiraling lumps and bumps in time are not acceptable.  Perhaps  
we might ask a few historians or folks from other long point-of-view  
professions whether there is a need for global coordination?  Time  
isn't just about what happens today.  Time has permanence in our  
records and histories.

(Also, I'm not sure saying "the politicians will fix it" is your most  
successful tactical point :-)

Leap seconds represent authentic intercalary corrections.  (So would  
leap hours - with the small caveat that they cannot be implemented.)   
On the other hand, the lumps and bumps from the timezone gimmick both  
accelerate with time, and pile higher and higher, one on top of the  
other.  Real time (the solar time that drives politicians in each  
county or country to reluctantly deal with this issue) will get  
further and further from civil time.  As a result, civil time will  
mean less and less.

As with the notion of leap hours, the lumps and bumps are really more  
like the Himalayas.

We need to stabilize civil time just like we need to stabilize the  
civil calendar and on a schedule not too dramatically different.

Rob