[LEAPSECS] CEPT ECC viewpoint on leap seconds

Brooks Harris brooks at edlmax.com
Wed Jan 28 06:22:13 EST 2015


On 2015-01-28 05:49 AM, Brooks Harris wrote:
> On 2015-01-28 05:31 AM, mike at lumieresimaginaire.com wrote:
>>
>> Oops - that last one got away while I was trying to quit HTML!!!
>>
>> Le 28.01.2015 11:09, Poul-Henning Kamp a écrit :
>>
>>> --------
>>> In message <54C8B26D.6050904 at edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:
>>>
>>>> It says - "Until now the solution has been to introduce a 'leap 
>>>> second', in other words to stop 'official/scientific' time 
>>>> (Co-ordinated Universal Time, 'UTC'), for one second every so often."
>>
>>  yes. completely incorrect.
>>
>>  Hold the phone. "to stop 'official/scientific' time"?!? How 
>> worrisome is it that the chair of the committee considering the Leap 
>> Second question could make a statement like that?
>>>
>>> Hold the yelling: What are the chances that we can ever implement
>>> leap-seconds in a responsible fashion, if even a such persons do
>>> not grasp what it is ?
>>
>>   Probably not so much a misunderstanding as inability to 
>> communicate. I wonder sometimes whether the issue is in the term Leap 
>> , which implies jumping over something, 
> It doesn't help. It only "leaps" on a positive Leap Seconds.
>> whereas the French term "intercalaire" indicates inserting which in 
>> most cases better describes what is going on.
>
> But its only "inserted" on positive Leap Seconds, and omitted on 
> negative. So "insert" is not a good word either.
>
> Also, its rarely made clear that its the counting method, the labeling 
> or numbering, we are talking about - actual seconds are not inserted 
> or omitted - where would they come from or go to?
>
> In the video industry the NTSC frame rate is 30000/1001 - 30 video 
> frames in 1.001 seconds, so a "nominal" second is slightly slower that 
> real-time. A frame labeling counting method to compensate is called 
> "Drop frame" - it "drops" frame numbers from the count so the hr:mn:sc 
> nearly match true running time.
>
> So it might be called "Leap or Drop Second Counting Method for TAI/UTC 
> Compensation". A bit of a mouthful. "Leap Seconds" is fine so long as 
> the meaning is made clear.

I should have said  - We're stuck with name "Leap Seconds" and we need 
to make an effort to make its meaning clear.

-Brooks

>
> -Brooks
>
>
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