[LEAPSECS] An example

[Warner Losh]

  On 11/02/2010 12:26, Finkleman, Dave wrote:

> My colleague, Sal Alfano, included in distribution observes with

> relevance that the state of Indiana in the U.S., legislated that Pi=3

> for convenience.  Eliminating leap seconds for convenience is similar.

> In the former case, it meant that no circle would ever close, lacking

> (pi/3-1) fraction of the circumference.  So it will be with time.

>

Is this analogy really apt?  the former was a mathematical fact that 
could be shown to be flawed, and the degree to which it is flawed could 
be understood.  The latter is a matter of how to synchronize two 
different clocks, and the magnitude to which DUT1 can grow.  While it 
was convenient for many communities to bake DUT1 coarsely into a widely 
propagated time scale, it was inconvenient for others.  As the relative 
sizes of these communities change, it make sense to reevaluate what we 
bake into the widely propagated time scale.

There's nothing magical about leap seconds.  They are not an inherent 
property of time.  They are a means to the end of relating the number of 
SI seconds that have elapsed to the angular orientation of the earth.  
One could make the exact opposite argument about leap seconds: They 
create a number of small holes in time and therefore distort time in a 
way that is all about convenience to some.  They make one falsely think 
that the SI second is somehow the same, or close enough to the same, as 
one second of angular motion by the Earth.  Is that also a lie, just 
like pi being 3 is a lie?

Warner