[LEAPSECS] Leap smear

Tony Finch dot at dotat.at
Tue Sep 20 04:44:26 EDT 2011


Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

>

> 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.


There's also the fact that people naturally prefer to sync their
activities to sunrise or sunset, so timetabling everything to mean solar
time is a very awkward imposition. This is why daylight saving time
exists, because astronomical time isn't convenient.

Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <dot at dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
Thames, Dover, Wight: Southwest 5 to 7. Moderate, occasionally rough. Rain
later. Moderate or good, occasionally poor later.


More information about the LEAPSECS mailing list