[LEAPSECS] What's the point?

[Tony Finch]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Rob Seaman wrote:

>

> PHK's position is that hundreds of local governments (that he appears to

> consider beneath contempt) would have to act separately or severally

> during each adjustment.


Right. Just as they do at present for political reasons.


> Even if one-a-day is introduced this would be the case.


Er what?! Days won't become 25 hours long until well over a hundred
million years in the future!

The current specification for UTC fails when we require more than 12 leap
seconds per year, which is some time between the years 3000 and 4000.
Very few timezone adjustments are needed to maintain synchronization with
that small discrepancy. Even in the year 10,000 there will still be
several decades between adjustments.


> A leap-hour-by-whatever-name cannot be ignored even by a microwave oven

> and no central authority would exist.


Right, just as is the case for timezone changes now. The lack of central
authority makes the system very flexible and resilient.


> Timezone "pressure" would have to be released when 3600 leap seconds

> accumulate.  Consider earthquakes.  The longer the period of quiescence,

> the larger the quake when it happens.


There is no quiescence because the politicians keep changing them.


> Since it is a tenet of the rubber timezone notion that there would be no

> central authority, each timezone quake would have technical, historical,

> legal and economic aftershocks lasting possibly decades as one locality

> after another shifted.


For example look at the catastrophic problems caused by the 2007 timezone
changes in North America - worse than Y2K! Governments fell! Lawsuits
continue to this day!

Tony.
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