[LEAPSECS] leap seconds schedule prior to 1972

[Warner Losh]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 8:17 AM, John Sauter <
John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com> wrote:

> I have proposed a schedule of leap seconds prior to 1972 based on the
> Earth's rotation rate, which was deduced from ancient observations of
> the Sun and Moon.  The complete paper is available on my web site, at
>
> https://www.systemeyescomputerstore.com/proleptic_UTC.pdf.
>
> I would be grateful for any criticism, particularly any suggestions for
> improving the paper.  It is my goal to publish this paper on arXiv.org,
> perhaps in the astro-ph section.
>
> Here is the abstract:
>
> Using ancient observations of the Sun and Moon, construct a time scale
> using the modern definition of Coordinated Universal Time to cover the
> past 3,000 years. Use the 20th century portion of that time scale to
> construct a table of leap seconds from 1900 through 1971 for NTP.
>

I both love and hate this.

I love it because the rules are clear and mechanical. This means
that it can be implemented relatively easily in code. I'd prefer simpler
rules, but it's a lot better than the 'surprise' model we have today. It
also show just how crazy leap seconds are given the crazy number
of leap seconds needed (see years -1000's for example).

I hate it because nobody did it. It's a complete artificial construct
that's different from modern UTC. Modern UTC isn't so neat. There's
ambiguity with when a leap second could occur. Do you schedule
an early leap second when DUT1 is just a niggle over a positive
second keeping DUT1 in the range -.9 to .1 mostly. Or do you wait
6 months and schedule it when DUT1 is approaching .5 to keep
DUT1 in the range -.5 to .5. Or do you wait even longer until it's
almost up to +.9 and thus tend to be -.1 to .9. The Proleptic UTC
in this paper has none of this complexity.

It is quite interesting, though. I didn't think I'd find anything I'd like
about it at all, but after reading it, this does seem to take all the
crazy into what an ancient UTC would look like.

If it were me, I'd not worry about the license. If you are publishing
it in arXiv.org, you'll already establish priority. The license seems
to be a needless complication and barrier to adoption in this case.
But that's just me....

Warner
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