[LEAPSECS] Consensus!

[Ian Batten]

On 22 Feb 2011, at 22:46, Warner Losh wrote:


> On 02/22/2011 15:33, Rob Seaman wrote:

>> On Feb 22, 2011, at 2:31 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

>> 

>>> the 10-year horizon solves many problems with leap seconds.

>> I just wanted to highlight that significant consensus has indeed been reached!

> 

> I've been saying this on and off for a while...  I'd prefer there be no more leap seconds,


But in which case, your navigation scenarios evaporate, because UTC with no leapseconds would be of no use to people using it for celstial navigation.  You've got scenarios which have as a requirement the immediate production of UTC, but that's because UTC is a time scale which has two useful properties (SI seconds and close alignment to UT1) than other time scales don't.  If you unhinge UTC from UT1, which is the effect of removing leap seconds, why would navigational customers need it?  You cited Loran stations: why would a Loran station need a timescale that is explicitly _not_ connected to celestial motions?  If they want a readily available timescale to synchronise to amongst stations and consumers, GPS time (or any other mutually available time) will do; if they want a time scale to allow checking of events against transits and zeniths, they need UT1 or UTC.

ian