On Mon 2006/06/05 16:38:08 -0400, John Cowan wrote in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
>Q: "What happened in the Philippines on December 31, 1844?" >A: "Nothing. It never existed." It is fallacious to pretend that the old time scale ceases to exist at the instant that the new one comes into effect. Essentially the same sort of fallacy gives rise to the "twin paradox" in special relativity, (see wikipedia). Simply think of the old scale continuing as previously, and the new as having existed before the changeover (i.e. proleptic) and the changeover consisting of changing from one to the other. You will find December 31, 1844 in both timescales. Mark Calabretta ATNF