[LEAPSECS] Leap smear

[Warner Losh]

On Sep 19, 2011, at 9:59 AM, Rob Seaman wrote:


> Rather I love the coherent collection of requirements.  Still find it interesting that none of my more "creative" talking points gets under the skin like simply recommending that coherent system engineering best practices be followed.


We agree on that, just disagree what the coherent system requirements are.

> 

> Usual comment about apparent solar time being a red herring.  Consider the fact that we moved from apparent solar timekeeping to mean solar timekeeping.


Not at all a red-herring, but rather making a subtle point that we've already moved off of apparent solar time.  We're not even using mean solar time, but mean solar time at some arbitrary location.  Each step is a step away from being tied to the sun.  There are many more steps possible, up to and including just going with atomic time and forgetting the sun.

Warner


> We have had all these discussions before.  Signing off for the reception with the Lord Mayor.

> 

> Rob

> --

> 

> On Sep 19, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

> 

>> 

>> On Sep 19, 2011, at 2:35 AM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

>>> And it may well be that, in however many

>>> hundreds of years (I forget) it will be before we reach a (say) 3 hour

>>> difference, enough people will be working shifts or partying all day/night

>>> that nobody cares about the sun any more.

>> 

>> Please see the oft sited:

>> 

>> http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/dutc.html

>> 

>> where you'd see that 3 hours is between 1400-1800 years were we to immediately stop all leap seconds and not bother to use other means to speed the earth's rotation to keep it in sync with the atomic clocks.

>> 

>> I do agree that you've hit the nail on the head about Rob.  He loves his synodic day.  Trouble is people get up when it gets light (and thus don't care about what the clocks say), or they get up with their alarm goes off (in which case they don't care if it is light: the boss man says be here by 8:00am).  People care more about there being less light in winter making them depressed than they do about the mean apparent solar time error while they are ingesting their mid-day meal.

>> 

>> Warner

>> 

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