Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
I think we have been over this ground before.
Well, knock me over with a feather!
It obviously follows, that with leap second granularity of 1 SI
second, you need to keep track of the residual also, so your
telescope already uses (UTC + DUT1), effectively UT1, for pointing,
right ?
No. Some applications are DUT1 aware. Many are not, precisely
because DUT1 is required to be small. The former will be subject to
Y2K-like failures. The latter will require more drastic rewriting of
algorithms. This will clearly be a much larger expense to astronomy
than Y2K. Moving on...
Which is it? Either the cessation of leap seconds is a complex
question that demands a well thought out plan - or the cessation of
leap seconds is a simple question for which a plan would be trivial
to generate at the level of nuance required. Either way, is it too
much to expect that an actual plan be written?
I would expect, that the plan may be written down on the back of a
napkin somewhere, having the following substance:
1. Ratify changed document.
2. Announce changed document.
3. Mail copy to BIPM.
4. Case closed -- not our problem any more.
That is a large part of the attractiveness of just dropping leap-
seconds.
A monk asked Chao-chou, "Has the cow Buddha nature or not?" Chao-chou
said, "Mu."
- Rob
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