[LEAPSECS] What's the point?

[Rob Seaman]

Tony Finch wrote:


> On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Rob Seaman wrote:

>> 

>> 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!


In context my statement was:

	"By comparison, a leap second is introduced by a central authority and is ignored by microwave ovens and set-top boxes and in general most clocks worldwide.  Even if one-a-day is introduced this would be the case."

I was discussing one-a-day leap-seconds, that is, when the length-of-day becomes 86401 SI-seconds.

By comparison, leap-hour-proxies like rubber timezones would originate from no central authority and could be ignored by no stake-holders for any purposes.

This is also a rhetorical discussion.  The problems resulting from embargoing leap seconds would start immediately.  Astronomers are just the canaries in the coal mine.

Rob

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/leapsecs/attachments/20110209/a6f6806e/attachment.html>