[LEAPSECS] Closing the rift

[Rob Seaman]

On Feb 11, 2011, at 6:32 AM, Paul Sheer wrote:


> On Thu, 2011-02-10 at 21:31 -0800, Tom Van Baak wrote:

>> 

> 

>> I know we're getting a bit far from the OP or from leap seconds,

> 

> You don't say


"The medium is the message" and "there is another system":

	http://leapsecond.com/time-nuts.htm

Without getting too new-agey, civil timekeeping is about duality.  This is reflected in the interests and activities, vocations and avocations of those who participate.  To grossly oversimplify these two fora, atomic time is the domain of the hardware engineers and Earth orientation time is the province of programmers, while the science of time crosses back and forth.

Both are grand and glorious and the two work together to create more than the sum of the parts.  Which is to say that we need more than just some of the parts to build a common timekeeping system that maps onto a coherent model of the world.

Rob