[LEAPSECS] Conversational caffeine

[Gerard Ashton]

On 1/28/2011 5:47 PM, Rob Seaman wrote (in part):

>

> Civil time is based on the synodic day.  Interval timekeeping requires a different timescale.  Pretending one is the other is not a requirement.

>

> Rob

>

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Civil time is kept by both ordinary folks and scientists in both 
industrialized and developing nations, and the subtle differences in 
various nations and the understandings within various groups within 
nations have never been put to the test.

The calendar traditionally has been based on the synodic day. Whether 
the authority granted to government agencies to disseminate time (e.g. 
"The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value 
thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and 
Measures") also applies to regulating the calendar has been tested only 
in some countries, and at least in the case of France, the government 
failed the test. The likelihood of any present governments still 
existing by the time this would become an issue is for the reader to 
speculate upon.

Interval timing requires two timescales per jurisdiction, one for 
computing intervals of civil time (typically used for social, civil, and 
legal purposes) and another for measuring SI time (typically used for 
physics computations).

Gerry Ashton