On Mon 2006/06/05 22:04:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote
in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
All your points are correct, but it doesn't change the fact that
there was no 1845-12-31 in Manila, any more than there was a
second labeled 2006-04-02T00:02:30 in New York.
There were two such, one
I belive this was because the year followed the taxation cycle of the
government whereas the day+month followed the religiously inherited
tradtion.
Indeed. For that matter, the start of the U.K. tax year was left alone
when the calendar changed, and is now 6 April (it should be 7 April,
Rob Seaman said:
In the UK in 1750, there were two different Julian calendars in
use: the
day and month enumeration matched, but year numbers changed at
different
dates (1st January in Scotland, 25th March in England and Wales).
I've heard this said, but what exactly does this mean from the
Zefram said:
Looks a lot like that. They used not to be, though: it seems that the
oldest convention was to start the counted year on January 1, where Julius
had put (well, left) the start of the calendar year.
Um, March was the first month of the year; look at the derivation of
September,
Poul-Henning Kamp said:
22 March 1750
23 March 1750
24 March 1750
25 March 1751
26 March 1751
27 March 1751
I belive this was because the year followed the taxation cycle of the
government whereas the day+month followed the religiously inherited
Ed Davies said:
Yes, I think that's right. And, as I understand it, we still keep
that change of year in mid-month but now it's on April 5th for the
change of tax year. When we switched from the Julian to the Gregorian
calendar the tax year was kept the same length so its date changed.
That
John Cowan said:
References for this? Your explanation makes a lot of sense and I'm
prepared to be convinced, but have been skeptical of experimental
design as applied to questions of human behavior since participating
in studies as a requirement of undergraduate psychology coursework.
And
Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
So humans will cope until the solar day is about
27 (present) hours long, after which we'll probably start to move to a
system of two sleep-wake cycles per day.
I doubt our ability to handle a 14-hour sleep-wake cycle. I suspect that
(if we're
Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
March was the first month of the year; look at the derivation of
September, for example.
Makes the zero vs. one indexing question of C and FORTRAN programmers
look sane. I've pointed people to the whole 7, 8, 9, 10 sequence
from September to December on those
On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Rob Seaman wrote:
Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
March was the first month of the year; look at the derivation of
September, for example.
Makes the zero vs. one indexing question of C and FORTRAN programmers
look sane. I've pointed people to the whole 7, 8, 9, 10 sequence
John Cowan wrote:
In the cover story, it was used as a final
defense against the Invaders and destroyed by them. In the true
story, it was destroyed because it constituted a hazard, but I
forget exactly how.
Thanks! But not sure true story is the opposite of cover story,
here :-)
Both
On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Rob Seaman wrote:
I thought Julius renamed some high value summer month and wanna-be
Augustus did likewise, stealing a day from February to make August
the same length. If they put two extra months in, where were those
62 days originally?
Yes of course, and a quick
Hands up if you wish you had the authority to swing that kind of
timekeeping standardization adjustment.
It's a lot easier to get consensus if you are willing and able to kill
those with opposing viewpoints. :)
Rob Seaman scripsit:
Of course, any old I, Claudius fan knows that Augustus was
originally named Octavius. Mere coincidence that the eighth child
would end up naming the eighth month?
Almost certainly. The eighth month was Sextilis, as July was originally
Quin(c)tilis.
--
John Cowan
Rob Seaman said:
I thought Julius renamed some high value summer month and wanna-be
Augustus did likewise, stealing a day from February to make August
the same length. If they put two extra months in, where were those
62 days originally?
Very briefly:
- Julius and Augustus renamed months 5
Rob Seaman said:
John Cowan wrote:
In the cover story, it was used as a final
defense against the Invaders and destroyed by them. In the true
story, it was destroyed because it constituted a hazard, but I
forget exactly how.
Thanks! But not sure true story is the opposite of cover story,
Clive D.W. Feather scripsit:
I don't think John's referring to Against the Fall of Night versus
The City and the Stars. Rather, at least in the latter, the official
(cover) story of Diaspar (sp?) and the Invaders disagrees in many
aspects with the true story as revealed by Vandemar (sp?).
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Cowan writes:
Rob Seaman scripsit:
Old English had its own set of month names entirely unrelated to
the Latin ones: if they had survived, they would have been Afteryule,
Solmath 'mud-month', Rethe[math] 'rough-month', Astron [pl. of 'Easter'],
Thrimilch
Quintilis was renamed after Julius Caesar. Later Sextilis was renamed
after Augustus Caesar. It is often said that the month lengths were
changed at the same time, but at least one version of that story is
fabricated and there's a distinct lack of evidence for it. Other emperors
had months
On Jun 8, 2006, at 8:08 AM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
Rob Seaman said:
Thanks! But not sure true story is the opposite of cover
story, here :-)
I don't think John's referring to Against the Fall of Night
versus The
City and the Stars. Rather, at least in the latter, the official
(cover)
Poul-Henning Kamp scripsit:
Old English had its own set of month names entirely unrelated to
the Latin ones: if they had survived, they would have been Afteryule,
Solmath 'mud-month', Rethe[math] 'rough-month', Astron [pl. of 'Easter'],
Thrimilch 'three-milking', Forelithe, Afterlithe,
Rob Seaman said:
As I've said before, eventually the notion that the solar day contains
24h of 60m of 60s will have to be abandoned. It'll be awfully hard
to maintain when an hour involves two human sleep-wake cycles,
out in the limit when the Moon is fully tidally locked and 1 lunar
month =
John Cowan said:
Historians aren't exactly consistent on the question. In European
history, dates are Julian or Gregorian depending on the location;
dates in East Asian history seem to be proleptic Gregorian.
Even worse, Julian can have more than one meaning.
In the UK in 1750, there were
On Jun 7, 2006, at 2:01 AM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
Actually, the evidence from experiments is that the natural sleep-
wake
cycle is about 27 hours long, but force-locked to the day-night
cycle (it's
easier to synchronise a longer free-running timer to a shorter
external
signal than
Poul-Henning Kamp scripsit:
I belive this was because the year followed the taxation cycle of the
government whereas the day+month followed the religiously inherited
tradtion.
Indeed. For that matter, the start of the U.K. tax year was left alone
when the calendar changed, and is now 6 April
Tim Shepard replies:
Also hard to imagine how one gracefully transitions
from one to two sleep cycles a day.
It is already the norm in some places:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta
Thanks for the chuckle. One is then left wondering whether our far
future, Clarkeian Against the Fall
Rob Seaman scripsit:
References for this? Your explanation makes a lot of sense and I'm
prepared to be convinced, but have been skeptical of experimental
design as applied to questions of human behavior since participating
in studies as a requirement of undergraduate psychology coursework.
Rob Seaman wrote:
Doubt I can lay my hands on the copy of ISO 8601 from my Y2K remediation
days. Anybody want to comment on whether it actually attempts to convey
the Gregorian algorithm within its pages?
Yes, it does.
This International Standard uses the Gregorian calendar for the
Ed Davies quoted:The Gregorian calendar provides a reference system consisting of a,potentially infinite, series of contiguous calendar years. Consecutivecalendar years are identified by sequentially assigned year numbers.A reference point is used which assigns the year number 1875 to thecalendar
M. Warner Losh scripsit:
: The designers of Posix time thought it was more important to preserve
: the property that dividing the difference between two time_t values
: by 60, 3600, 86400 would give minutes, hours, days.
That's the one property that Posix time_t does not have. The
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: M. Warner Losh scripsit:
:
: : The designers of Posix time thought it was more important to preserve
: : the property that dividing the difference between two time_t values
: : by 60, 3600, 86400 would give
On Jun 4, 2006, at 9:57 PM, M. Warner Losh wrote:
leap days have a rule, while leap seconds are scheduled.
A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from
different historical perspectives. The leap day rule will most
certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the
From: Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] building consensus
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 08:35:39 -0700
On Jun 4, 2006, at 9:57 PM, M. Warner Losh wrote:
leap days have a rule, while leap seconds are scheduled.
A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from
Rob Seaman scripsit:
A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from
different historical perspectives. The leap day rule will most
certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the millennia.
Fair enough, but there is a huge difference in practical terms between
a rule
Warner Losh wrote:
A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better
word for that implication.
In the realm of calendars the terminology is arithmetic versus
observational. That's one of the things I included at the start of
this thread. I'd also like to throw in the word
Warner Losh wrote:
A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better
word for that implication.
In the realm of calendars the terminology is arithmetic versus
observational. That's one of the things I included at the start of
this thread. I'd also like to throw in the
On Jun 5, 2006, at 8:45 AM, Warner Losh wrote:Leap days have an iron-clad rule that generates the schedule on whichthey happen. Leap seconds have a committee that generates theschedule on which they happen.Further discussion in this thread calls into question the characterization of "iron-clad
Rob Seaman scripsit:
So the calendar is either immutable - or it isn't :-)
The Gregorian calendar is immutable. Whether it is in use at a certain
place is not. Local time is on the Gregorian calendar today in the
U.S., but might conceivably be on the Revised Julian or even the Islamic
On Jun 5, 2006, at 1:05 PM, John Cowan wrote:
(ObOddity: It seems that in Israel, which is on UTC+3, the legal
day begins at 1800 local time the day before. This simplifies
the accommodation of Israeli and traditional Jewish law.)
I wouldn't call this an oddity, but rather an interesting
Rob Seaman scripsit:
I wouldn't call this an oddity, but rather an interesting and
elegant, one might even say charming, local custom. The logic of
this accommodation between 6:-00 pm clock time and a mean sunset
demonstrates another weakness in the ALHP, since clock time would
drift
On Jun 5, 2006, at 1:38 PM, John Cowan wrote:
I found another spectacular illustration of how massive the difference
between solar and legal time can be. Before 1845, the time in Manila,
the Philippines, was the same as Acapulco, Mexico, a discrepancy of
9h16m from Manila solar time. This was
Rob Seaman scripsit:
One might suggest that the accommodation between civil time and legal
time is of more interest.
I'm not sure what you mean by civil time in this context. For some
people, civil time is synonymous with standard time; for others, it
means the time shown by accurate clocks
Rob Seaman wrote:
One might ponder what standards body is responsible for the
international calendar specification. Is it the Roman Catholic
church?
The RCC is authoritative for no calendar other than the RCC calendar.
Originally this amounted to an endorsement of the Roman empire's
then-current
On Jun 5, 2006, at 2:47 PM, John Cowan wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by civil time in this context.
I meant whatever we've meant in this forum for the past five years.
For some people, civil time is synonymous with standard time; for
others, it means the time shown by accurate clocks in
On Jun 5, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:
On the other hand, all I've ever meant by the term civil time is
that time that a well educated civilian sets her clock in order to
agree with other civilians for civilian purposes.
I should clarify this to mean the underlying internationalized
Rob Seaman scripsit:
I presume you aren't asserting that standard time clocks can't be
accurate, but rather distinguishing between standard (timezone)
time and local mean solar time?
No, I am reflecting the fact that some people define local civil time
in such a way as to exclude
On Mon 2006/06/05 11:07:00 MST, Rob Seaman wrote
in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
Julian, just as the Julian succeeded what came before. That Caesar
was more successful than Pope Gregory at convincing the world to
rapidly adopt the new standard is a result of some pretty interesting
Mark Calabretta scripsit:
You will find December 31, 1844 in both timescales.
All your points are correct, but it doesn't change the fact that
there was no 1845-12-31 in Manila, any more than there was a
second labeled 2006-04-02T00:02:30 in New York.
--
Evolutionary psychology is the theory
On Mon 2006/06/05 22:04:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote
in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
there was no 1845-12-31 in Manila, any more than there was a
As magic tricks go I don't find this one very convincing - I can
clearly see the rabbits behind your back.
Mark Calabretta
ATNF
Zefram scripsit:
If this means that leap seconds and leap days are analogous, then I
suppose so. If it means something else, I don't understand it.
That's what I meant. Can you suggest a clearer wording?
Leap seconds (after 1972) are closely analogous to leap days.
Being ambiguous
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: Zefram scripsit:
:
: If this means that leap secounds and leap days are analogous, then I
: suppose so. If it means something else, I don't understand it.
:
: That's what I meant. Can you suggest a clearer
The answer to the intial query depends upon what you mean by active.
Ron Beard, Chair of the ITU's Special Rapporteur Group is on the list.
Also Dennis McCarthy, who is Chair of the IAU's Working Group on the Leap
Second.
I am less active, particucularly lately, but have been known to forward
On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
We intentionally try to be silent in this forum.
Why?
Peter.
UT1 et al are not really measures of time, but of angle (of Terran
rotation).
To some degree yes, but don't they also include minor
corrections (polar motion, longitude, etc.) and so at one
level they already depart from raw angle measurement
and instead are trying to act like clocks?
/tvb
On Thu 2006-06-01T08:09:22 -0400, John Cowan hath writ:
Some do, some don't, some couldn't care less.
It deserves to be noted that last year at the GA in India URSI
Commission J decided that it couldn't care, and discontinued its
working group on the leap second.
On Thu 2006-06-01T06:25:39 -0700, Tom Van Baak hath writ:
UT1 et al are not really measures of time, but of angle (of Terran
rotation).
To some degree yes, but don't they also include minor
corrections (polar motion, longitude, etc.) and so at one
level they already depart from raw angle
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: Actually, this list is not a discussion per se. If we simplify the
: positions - just for the sake of argument here - to leap second yes
: and leap second no, the reality is that the folks pushing the leap
: second
M. Warner Losh scripsit:
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: Actually, this list is not a discussion per se. If we simplify the
: positions - just for the sake of argument here - to leap second yes
: and leap second no, the reality is that the
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: M. Warner Losh scripsit:
:
: In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
: Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: : Actually, this list is not a discussion per se. If we simplify the
: : positions - just for the
Warner Losh objects:There are several doughty people here who happen to have that opinion, but they abide with us mortals outside the time lords' hushed inner sanctum.I have spent much time explaining why leap seconds cause real problems in real applications, only to be insulted like this.Sincere
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
: Warner Losh objects:
:
: There are several doughty people here who happen to have that
: opinion, but they abide with us mortals outside the time lords'
: hushed inner sanctum.
:
: I have spent much time
61 matches
Mail list logo