[LEAPSECS] the big artillery

[Sanjeev Gupta]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 2:24 AM, Dennis Ferguson <dennis.c.ferguson at gmail.com
> wrote:

> In some ways the UTC minute redefinition is even worse than that.  A 6
> year old
> might not know how many seconds are in a hectosecond but would often be
> expected to know there are 60 seconds in a minute.  Redefining this to be
> otherwise
> seems bound to cause cognitive dissonance in many grown up former 6 year
> olds.
>

A six-year old can continue to believe that a minute has 60 seconds, and an
year has 365 days, and a mile is 1 and a half km.

When Rob Seaman decides to allow said six-year old near his telescope, he
can teach the extra rules.  But do not *define* the year to be 365 days.

As a general rant, I still complain that (roughly) year 8 to year 12 of my
schooling required me to learn stuff in physics, and then the next year,
often the same teacher would tell me what I had learnt was wrong, and this
was the correct way.  We teach Newtonian mechanics in high school, and then
a year or two later, *the same guy*, smirking, tells you that actually,
that is wrong, a simplification for children.

But we still teach and respect the Lorentz corrections, even though we all
know that momentum is mass times velocity.

Anyone who wishes to believe 60 secs always to a minute can continue to do
so.  Anyone who needs the extra accuracy (time-nuts, astronomers, pedants,
old men like me) will learn the fact that a minute is not always 60 secs.
Anyone who is unwilling to learn this should not be pointing the scope on
Mt Palomar anyway.

-- 
Sanjeev Gupta
+65 98551208     http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
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